


Imperfect

by Eyvindr



Category: Bleach
Genre: Drama, Humor, M/M, Romance, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eyvindr/pseuds/Eyvindr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking at Captain Kurotsuchi Mayuri now, nobody would believe that he, too was once a rookie. Actually his was a career that started a bit lower than the normal. From a few meters lower. Like, from the sewers... UraharaxMayuri</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Letters

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach or any recognizable characters in this fic. I am also not making money by writing this fic. Duh...
> 
>  **Warning! Read Me:** This x-posted with FFnet. It is going to contain shonen ai, yaoi (you know, the m/m thing!) and Mayuri. If you have a problem with any of these please stop reading this fic unless you are a mazochist of course. Flames against either yaoi or Mayuri or both—or any kind of combination of these are going to be ignored and the flamers will be immortalized in the form of a voodoo doll with pins where it hurts them the most!
> 
>  **What is different:** In this story Mayuri was still free when Urahara became a captain, and the two of them did not meet in the Maggots Nest! Even though Urahara founded the Research and Development Institute right after his promotion, he did not offer the position of second in command for Mayuri – simply because they didn't know each other back then.
> 
> Mayuri still has most of his original set of limbs and other bodyparts, including ears and hair too (no hat, mask or any other accesories either).
> 
>  **Timeline:** set about 100-130 years before the main storyline of Bleach.
> 
> Huge thanks to my dear betas, Lorraine and Vixen Argentum for their help! You, girls, are the best!

  


* * *

  


**Prologue**

  


It was spring, the last week of the school year and as such, the corridors of the academy were full of little groups of seniors who were chatting enthusiastically. Most of them gathered around the long lists hanging on the walls, looking for their names.

This comfortable buzzing was suddenly disturbed by the heavy sound of someone's hurried steps and the loud bang of an opening door. Shibazaki Gonsuke, the academy's current student advisor, took one last sip of his tea then started to read another paper.

There was no need for him to look up to know who broke into his office; he was expecting this meeting. He'd known this would happen ever since the results of the student applications came from the 13 protection squads. Yet he still didn't feel ready for this clash, even though he'd had a week to prepare himself.

The sound of steps came closer and closer and with a dull thump someone slammed a paper on his table.

"What is this about? I demand an explanation!"

Gonsuke stared tiredly at the paper and sighed, no matter how much he wished he couldn't run away anymore.

"Good morning, Kurotsuchi-san!" he muttered and without even looking up, pushed the paper aside.

"Don't 'good morning' me but answer! What's the meaning of this?"

Gonsuke put his brush down, arranged his features into an expressionless mask and looked up (the first time since the student entered the room) right into a pair of yellow eyes glowing with anger.

He knew exactly what the student was trying to ask, but he didn't feel like making it easier for him. He'd been working for eighty years at the academy and had met many students, but never such a bad-tempered and arrogant one as Kurotsuchi Mayuri, not even among the children of the Great Noble Families. During the six years Mayuri spent at the academy his name had practically become a legend among the teachers and office workers with his regular rows and questionable dealings with the other students.

This was his last year though, and Gonsuke knew it was only the matter of days before Mayuri stepped out of his and the school's life forever, and received his well-deserved punishment from the real world. So he wanted to enjoy this last chance to be as minimally helpful as only one can get with long years of bureaucratic experience.

"This is the squad list, Kurotsuchi-san. And I would appreciate if you put it back on the wall. Others may need it too."

"Iknow what this is." Mayuri growled with rage. "But what is this number supposed to mean?" He pointed at the paper.

Gonsuke followed his movement with a tired look, although he was sure he knew where it lead: to Mayuri's name.

"The number of your new squad, and your rank there."

"But this is not where I applied for!"

"I know, but this is where you were admitted to."

"But this cannot be! This must be a mistake! I must have had enough points to be admitted! I demand that you check it again!"

"There is no mistake in this. Although you achieved maximal points, as always," he added with a touch of sourness in his voice, "the 12th squad rejected your application, so it was sent on to the other squads."

"But why?"

With a sigh Gonsuke leaned on his elbow and looked at the young man in front of him. The 12th squad wasn't among the strongest squads but it was the most strictly supervised one; the place where the most dangerous experiments were carried out.

Over the years when an accident happened at the 12th squad it was always at the expense of the whole Soul Society. After the incident with the Bounts the office of 46 made a serious decision to avert further calamities, and from that day onward only students with unquestionable morality and sense of responsibility could be accepted into the 12th squad, which had to be proven with a personally signed recommendation from a teacher.

How could he explain that the reason for the rejection was simply that there wasn't one shinigami in the whole academy who would vouch for Mayuri's sanity, much less for his unquestionable morality or sense of responsibility? At the end he chose the only solution he could think of, he shrugged and with an emotionless face he said:

"I can't even imagine, Kurotsuchi-san," and quickly, before the other had a chance to react, he added: "The decision is final. From now on, you are a member of the 4th squad. Congratulations!"

"But I..."

"Please put this paper back as you leave."

"But..."

"Goodbye, Kurotsuchi-san!"

The boy shot a long, hateful glance at him, picked up the paper and stormed out the door.  


  


* * *

  
****

**Chapter 1**

  
 **

Letters

**  
It was a day just like any other when Yoruichi decided to visit Urahara. The weather was so nice and it'd have been such a shame to sit over papers (or so she thought) but that man was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in his lab or any of his favorite spots. When she found him at last he was alone, lying on his back on one of the tall rooftops of the lonely buildings with a lollipop in his mouth and arms under his head. His gray eyes were scanning the clouds so unaware of the existence of the rest of the world as only he could be.

"Yo! Kisuke!" she greeted him as she appeared next to him. "What are you doing here?"

"Yoruichi-san?" Urahara looked up with a tired smile. "Nothing. Just watching the clouds and thinking."

"So… the experiment has failed again." This wasn't a question but a statement; one she knew was true. Urahara only nodded.

Yoruichi wondered whether she should tell him how sorry she was, but perhaps there wouldn't be any point of it. This wasn't the first time, and surely not the last either; they both knew it. So she just sat down next to him, looking up at the sky and let the companionable silence to envelop them.

It was one of the strangest things, she mused, how the usually spirited Urahara could gaze at the sky for hours without moving the slightest whenever he was troubled. Yoruichi knew of course that there was a sky above them (she was even aware that it was pretty), but in her opinion staring at it solved nothing and so was pointless and boring.

But for Urahara it seemed to smooth his troubled mind, and when he spoke again he sounded pondering:

"Have you ever noticed even if rain falls in Soul Society, how it never falls here, among the walls of the Seireitei? Isn't it weird?"

"Yeah" she grinned. "Although it is even more weird to hear you complain about it. After all, isn't it the 12th squad that keeps it this way?"

"On the order of Yamamoto-sama. This is supposed to be the place of perfect weather, or so he thinks." Urahara said with a shrug. "It never changes. Every day, it's always the same, never a storm, and never a drop of rain. It feels so... alien."

"Well, perhaps" she agreed with a small nod and laid down next to him with a long, cat-like stretch, an intimate gesture which she allowed herself only in his presence.

"But most people like it, and I can't say I mind it either. It's better than getting wet and walking up to the neck in the mud every day. I guess this must be why Yamamoto orders it to be like this."

"Always without a change... " whispered the man and Yoruichi had to smile.

"Now aren't you unusually philosophic today?"

Urahara just remained silent and closed his eyes. When he answered at last, it came unexpectedly with a tired sigh.

"It died right after the activation, you know." he said slowly. "There are 254 shinigami under my command and there wasn't one, who could find an error in the design of that compact soul. Yet it failed." He stopped for a moment as a sudden wind blew his hair into his face.

"That was how I realized. They are all clever and hardworking men, selected after hundreds of tests. Yet useless, all of them." He gestured wearily, "We chose them considering what everyone would expect from a subordinate, but with this we also prevented any kind of development. The same pattern of thinking, being sorted out by those tests. They are just like this weather."

"Hmm…" she sounded amused. "You sure are strict with your subordinates."

"Quality over quantity, dear Yoruichi," he smiled seductively.

"Yeah, I guess this explains a lot." She said with a wide grin. Urahara laughed with her, but his voice lacked any real joy. When he spoke again he sounded distant.

"Always sunshine, ne? So boring. Some rain would certainly be... refreshing."  
-oOo-  
How Yamada Momotaro had ever become an officer of the 4th squad was a mystery to everyone, especially to himself. He never had big dreams, never wanted to become a hero, and the greatest ambition of his life he ever dared to allow himself was dreaming about seeing the living world once. Not as a protector of course, just as a tourist.

He liked his life simple, without as much action as was possible. It wasn't because he was lazy, but whenever he tried to make an effort to solve a problem on his own, somehow said problem always became worse and he got in trouble; making everyone to be angry with him. So after a few years at the academy he gave up on trying. It was much easier to simply do what he was told to do, nothing more and nothing less. This way no one yelled at him, he could remain faceless and nameless and it even saved him time for reading and daydreaming.

It worked perfectly well 'til the day when Momotaro had to face the frightful fact that what he considered to be a good tactic was something that others saw as a sign of obedience and trustworthiness. One day an officer walked up to him, pushed a letter into his hands and patted his shoulder with a wide, friendly smile on his face.

"Congratulations, Yamada! In recognition of your efforts and hard work, from now on you are one of the 20th seated officers, leader of the 24th supply and cleaning team. Don't bring shame on your rank!"

With this position new assignments came, and his nightmare had started.

This ordeal's newest development was the report writing for the monthly-published newspaper, the 'Court of Pure Souls'. The magazine usually left a few pages empty for every division to fill it with articles on whatever topic they choose. In the 4th squad writing them was the job of the lower ranked officers, and this month it was Momotaro's turn.

All his friends told him that since the whole Seireitei was reading the magazine this was a great chance for him to stand out and draw attention to himself and his opinions. This thought somehow didn't make Momotaro feel any better.

Today was the last day before the deadline. He had to hand in his report at noon, yet now, at eleven o' clock, he still didn't have the faintest notion of what to write about. In the past two hours all he did was to scribe the word "Healing Magic" on the top of the paper. It sounded like an interesting topic, one worthy to appear in the newspaper; all he needed now was some idea how to continue it.

He took his brush in his hand and stared at the paper.

Nothing...

He put the brush down, than picked it up again, and glared at the paper a bit more.

Still nothing...

He wanted to scream. He grabbed the brush and threw it at the wall with all his strength, but almost immediately regretted it. After all it wasn't the brush's fault that he was in this situation. He knelt down to find it, but couldn't see it anywhere. While he was climbing under the desk the sounds of throat clearing caught his attention.

"You may stand up now. I know you are hiding under the table."

Momotaro jumped as high as a flea in his surprise, and bumped his head on the tabletop with a loud thump. For a short moment he wondered if he was wrong; the person who spoke couldn't be the one he thought he was, but after a moment of hesitation he had to admit he couldn't imagine anyone else with such a creepy voice.

"Kurotsuchi-san? I'm not hiding, I'm just," he mumbled as he crawled out from under the furniture and scrambled to his feet. "I mean... I...I..."

It was a mistake, and he immediately knew it. It was a mistake to look at Mayuri's face while talking to him. Before he looked, he couldn't see those cold and penetrating eyes staring down at him, he didn't feel the chill in his spine, and he didn't get a barely surpass-able desire to run away and hide under some rock. Before then he didn't feel like a piece of meat in the counter at the butcher's, being eyed by an elderly housewife who is wondering whether she should make a stew or a pie out of him. And before then he could also remember what he wanted to say.

Talking about shops, sometimes Momotaro wondered how someone could live with eyes like that. They must be very useful in combat, but how does someone go to the grocery store and ask for a liter of milk, some eggs and luncheon meat and not be arrested for mental harassment?

Well, Mayuri probably never went to the grocery, decided Momotaro and shook his head, trying to forget about the rather disturbing image. He should get back to the situation at hand, he reminded himself. So where was he? Oh yes! Under the table… Or rather, explaining what he was doing there.

Mayuri impatiently raised a dark eyebrow. "Yes?"

Momotaro, for lack of any faster explanation, only lifted the brush in his hand with a hopeful smile, but the grimace on the other man's face immediately ensured him that all hope was futile.

He sighed heavily. He couldn't understand how could he end up in such a situation. He was an officer after all, and Mayuri was only his subordinate, a less than unimportant rookie. He shouldn't be under such a mental pressure only from talking to him.

"What... what can I do for you, Kurotsuchi-san?" he asked.

Mayuri throw a scroll on the desk.

"Now that I have finished the work for today, here is a list of a few documents I need from the library. I have marked their finding place after the titles."

What was this supposed to mean? Momotaro didn't get it. He could only stare at him in disbelief.

"On the paper." the other man said with dry scorn and pushed the paper a bit closer to him.

Momotaro gave up. He still wasn't sure why Mayuri thought it was important to show him his library list, but it was clear he was expected to read it. As he proceeded from one finely calligraphied line to the other, a terrible suspicion started to take shape in his soul.

"But Kurotsuchi-san!" he breathed.

"What?"

"These documents are... they are all in the restricted area!"

"Yes."

"But only officers are allowed to borrow books and documents from the restricted area!"

Mayuri looked him up and down with a mocking disdain in his eyes.

"You are not really a sharp one, are you?" He sighed under his breath. "Why do you think I'm telling you this? You are my commanding officer. I'm not allowed to take them, so you will."

For a brief second the idea popped up in Momotaro's head that he should probably ask exactly why he should do this (not to mention, what Mayuri needed those documents for) but the look on the others face silenced him. There was no point in arguing, all he could squeeze out of himself was but one question:

"Now?"

"Of course!" snapped the blue haired rookie impatiently. "I have other things to do, too."

Momotaro swallowed nervously. "I... I'm sorry, but I can't."

Mayuri shot an angry, disbelieving glare at him as if he didn't hear him right.

"What?"

Momotaro slowly raised the brush again, with an even more hopeful smile. Mayuri's glare slowly grew from disbelieving to murderous.

"Yes, I saw it the first time, too."

"I... I mean..." Momotaro took a deep breath and explained. He told him everything about the newspaper, the article, and the deadline. Surprisingly, as he spoke, Mayuri listened him silently with narrowed eyes. Then he took the paper from the desk, read the words on the top of it, and pushed it under Yamada's nose.

"Is that all you have written?" he asked in an unfathomable voice and Momotaro could only nod.

Mayuri sighed deeply and sat down to the desk.

"Go to the library!" he commanded. "I will write this." And with that, he grabbed a brush from the table and opened the little, varnished box of the ink stone.

Momotaro didn't dare to believe his ears. Someone willing to save him sounded simply too good to be true, and imagining Mayuri as such a savior was just over the definition of unbelievable. Something was amiss here; it had to be. He had just opened his mouth to voice his doubts when the other man's hand stopped above the paper.

"Just to inform you," he said without even looking at him, "It is half past eleven. So make haste or you will have to gather your non-existent ideas by yourself. Or do you want to tell me you feel like you could finish this in time?"

"Well... no. But..."

"Of course not," smirked Mayuri cynically, "Now go, and let me work. Shoo-shoo!"

And with that he stood up, pushed Momotaro out the office door, and slammed it behind him. The boy just stood there for a long moment, still clutching the library list in his hands.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
The librarian (an old woman with one of those half-moon shaped glasses that had seemingly no other purpose than adding a very piercing effect to the wearer's glances), when finished reading the list Momotaro handed her, shot him a long, disbelieving stare.

"Is that all?"

Momotaro felt the chill creeping up in his spine. He had a very bad feeling about this. Librarians never looked at him this way when he tried to take out books, but of course the titles of those books usually started with words like 'adventure', 'rubies' or sometimes, when he felt really wild, 'dragons'. They definitely never contained words like 'verocosa' or 'anammox' or 'chromoblastomycosis'. Really, he had never even known before that such words existed.

And then the librarian asked the question he feared from the start.

"Yamada-san, what do you need these books for?"

He felt the sweat running down on his back. He needed a lie fast, and a good one too...

"I... I should widen my knowledge and wanted to read something new! Something exciting I've never seen before!"

The woman looked at him for a long moment as if he'd grown another head, but eventually said nothing, only shrugged and left for the other room leaving Momotaro alone.

He wanted to scream! This was the worst lie he ever heard. Something exciting? What kind of sick pervert would find a book with the titlechromoblastowhatever exciting? Well, perhaps Mayuri would, he realized, but he wasn't sure if this counted as an extenuating circumstance for him. He would bet anything that the librarian never believed him for a moment, but she hadn't pressed him any further, and when she appeared again she held a huge pack of dusty scrolls and tomes in her arms. Momotaro had to sign a few papers, and he was free to go. Then he ran out of the building as fast as he dared under the book pile.

When he entered the office again, Mayuri was still sitting in his chair. He was leaning back comfortably, resting his chin on the little tent formed by his fingers, and staring motionlessly at the wall with unfocused eyes, and there was no paper to be seen on the desk or anywhere around him.

Momotaro started to get worried. He wondered if he should ask, but it seemed too straightforward. After all Mayuri had helped him out, and being impolite to him now wouldn't be too nice. So he just put down the scrolls on the table and waited, hoping the other man would catch his meaning.

Mayuri's eyes lit up. "It was time for you to arrive! What took you so long?"

"I'm sorry. The library was crowded and the librarian lady was busy."

Mayuri answered only with a smug snort, and opened up one of the scrolls. Momotaro just stood there and waited to see his half of their agreement, but Mayuri clearly didn't let his presence bother him.

"Kurotsuchi-san?"

"What?"

"The article? May I get it now?"

"I have handed it in," he said plainly without looking up.

"Wha... Why?"

He pointed at the clock on the wall. Its hands stood on quarter to one.

"I was right on time. The man from the editing office just arrived to take the reports and articles. I told them you sent it."

"But I wanted to read it!"

"You will be able to read it when the new magazine is published. Just like everyone else," he said smugly and grabbed the scrolls from the desk. "Now, if you don't mind I don't have time to chat with you. I must read these," he said and stormed out the door, just as he came.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
When Urahara went to work that morning the offices were already empty. This was nothing surprising, of course; at eleven o' clock, most shinigami were ear deep in their jobs in the labs or in one of the computer rooms; no matter what a certain captain believed about flexible working hours.

Urahara didn't mind it though. He didn't want to meet with anyone right now. In the past few days even if he went to the office he usually did nothing other than stare at the walls. After the failure of his last experiment he couldn't find the motivation to continue the work.

Yet he was in a good mood today. Humming a soft little tune that he made up on the way, he waltzed down among the tables to his office door in his loudly clapping sandals with a mug of cocoa in his hands. It wasn't even as much of a tune as a bunch of sounds put after each other without any kind of planning or order, but he enjoyed them nonetheless.

He had almost reached the door when something caught his attention. A magazine was lying on one of the desks, with the picture of a young, jovially grinning shinigami in the colors of the academy on the cover.

For a moment Kisuke halted and glanced around in the room. It wouldn't be nice to take someone's magazine without permission. Yet reading at your workplace is also not too nice.

He considered this for a moment, then picked up the newspaper and casually started flipping through the pages, reading everything that seemed at least moderately interesting. When he reached the squad articles, he abruptly stopped. Should anyone have been in the office at moment to see the whole situation, they could have noted many oddities in Captain Urahara's behavior.

First were his eyebrows. They climbed unbelievably high on his forehead, while his eyes started to grow slightly similar in size to a dessert plate. As he proceeded lower and lower on the page, his everyday smile (which he wore strictly on weekdays, as opposed to the special one for holidays) was gone, replaced by a surprised grimace.

A good observer could have also noticed how the look in his eyes turned uncharacteristically cold as he shut the magazine and threw it into the paper bin with a sharp move.

However, the office was empty, so nobody could have seen anything. No one was there to see him walking up and down in his office for the rest of the day with that spaced-out look on his face that always foretold the birth of a new invention.

Nobody was there when he locked himself up in the laboratory after the sun had already set and the streets of Seireitei fell silent. And so at 7 o' clock the next morning, when people went to work, nobody understood why Urahara was already there even though it was still so early, and why he peeked into every paper bin he could find, and why he was so disappointed over the fact that all of them had been emptied over the night...

  


* * *

  
**a.n.:** No, Momotaro and Hanataro are not the same person!


	2. Those who seek

  


* * *

  


Soft knocking broke the silence, and the wooden slide door opened slowly. Momotaro peeked in the room shyly and when nobody answered, he entered with noiseless steps; eyes carefully kept staring at the floor. This was a captain's office after all. Rudeness here would be unforgivable.

"20th seat Yamada?" asked a woman's voice, gentle but firm.

"Yes."

"Captain Unohana is waiting for you in the garden. Please follow me."

This was the first time Momotaro dared to look up. It was late afternoon, and already dark in the small room; the faint yellow light of the sun filtered through the garden doors only enough to emphasize the shadows but never to break them. The faint smell of hundreds of incense cones burnt over the years radiated from the wooden furniture, mixed with the lavender fragrance of the perfume that belonged to the woman in front of him. It was an unusual mixture, a warm yet clean smell; one that always followed the healers of the squad. It was strangely calming, always bringing hope to Momotaro's heart.

Unohana was sitting on the polished wood porch, watching the sunset. Momotaro had never met her before. Of course he'd seen her from afar in the corridors and on the streets, but that was so different from being this close to her.

She was a beautiful woman. Her features were kind and in such a perfect harmony, as if they were composed by a painter of the old times. As she sat there, her rich, black hair framing her pale face and pouring down around her neck, she reminded Momotaro of a tennyou painted on an old scroll. She didn't move even when the woman who led Momotaro stepped next to her.

The boy didn't know what to do. He stood in front of the women and bowed deeply, waiting for the command that would mark that he was recognised and was allowed to sit down. But the command didn't come, and he slowly realized he was now standing between the Captain and the sunset she was watching.

He swallowed deeply. This wasn't good. He didn't know why Unohana ordered him here, but he had a feeling it was a serious matter and angering her wouldn't be wise. He slowly tried to crawl out of her sight to the side, all the while doing his best to look like he didn't move at all. At last Unohana took mercy on him, and looked down at I with her finely slit, dark blue eyes.

"20th seat Yamada. You may sit down," she said.

He did as was commanded and fell to his knees immediately, on the hard stones of the garden.

"You called me, Captain?"

"Yes," she nodded, "I want to talk to you about your recent behaviour."

Momotaro turned pale. He had hoped so much this was not the reason of this meeting.

A month had passed since the article was published, and ever since then Momotaro lived his life in fear. Fear of this moment. He'd had a bad feeling about it ever since Mayuri handed in the paper and wouldn't allow Momotaro to read it. Still, at that time he had hoped it would work out. However, all his hopes had been crushed when he had read the magazine. The title was the same as what he'd given it, 'Healing Magic', but the content had nothing to do with it.

It was about re-growing body parts.

This wasn't a new topic, just like every crippled person's wish to become healthy again was as old as humanity itself. There were even experiments in the past, but soon it became clear that the core of the idea, the controlling of the cell reproduction, was practically impossible and instead of arms and legs, they could only create formless monsters out of their patients. Many people died in these experiments, until at last the experiments had been outlawed for their inhumanity, and the topic was marked as ethically questionable and was never brought up again.

While it was not illegal, it was strongly discouraged. For members of the 4th squad, the healing division, it was an unmarked taboo – and a long essay about it had just been published under the name of Yamada Momotaro in the most popular magazine of Seireitei, read by everyone from captains to shopkeepers. Now Captain Unohana wanted to speak with him about it.

He wanted to die.

"You look stressed. Calm down, please," said Unohana with a faint smile.

Easy to say, he thought, and bit his lips. Seeing this the captain continued:

"I have no intention of punishing you, but there is something we must talk about. Isane!"

The tall woman who had led Momotaro into the garden stepped forward upon hearing her name and handed him something. As he took a closer look, he was surprised to see it was another magazine, not the one his article was published in, but the latest issue of the Court of Pure Souls.

"This was delivered yesterday. You have probably read it yourself too."

"Not… yet," he muttered.

"Then you also don't know that someone wrote an answer to your report."

Momotaro shook his head.

"20th seat Yamada? I want you to reply to it."

She said it sweetly, yet Momotaro felt as if his blood were freezing. Anger and determination shone in her eyes together with the promise of unspeakable horrors in the case of failure. In contrast to her delicate features, Captain Unohana could be a dangerous woman.

Momotaro slowly opened the magazine. He didn't need to seek for to long to find what he was looking for, the paper opened right there, as if its owner had read it hundreds of times. Unohana watched him silently as he ran through the lines, knitting his eyebrows at the longer words. It reminded him of Mayuri's writing a lot, there were too many foreign words in both, and while he could hardly understand most of the text, one thing became clear even for him: whoever wrote it did not have a very high opinion about the mental abilities of the 4th division, and didn't try to hide it.

He didn't know what to say. He wondered how he could get out of this trouble. If he said no, Unohana would make him regret ever being born, but if he said yes, he would have to write! He knew he could never write an acceptable response to this without Mayuri. And with Mayuri... Well, thinking it over, being killed by Unohana didn't sound so bad after all.

Momotaro's thoughts raced feverishly. He could only see one small chance to escape. Captain Unohana must see that nothing good could come from talking more about this taboo...

He took a deep breath:

"But Captain, with all due respect... wouldn't that..."

Unohana raised her hand to silence him.

"I know this topic is a sensitive one," she said with a smile, "but you have my permission to write it."

"Yes, Captain." He muttered and bowed his head, rolled up the magazine and followed the woman Unohana had called Isane out.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Only when the door closed behind him, and he was alone in the corridor again did Momotaro allow himself a heavy sigh. It seemed there was no running away now. He had to find Mayuri.

He only wished he didn't have that nagging feeling that such a meeting was destined to appear in the newspapers the next morning. Probably with titles like "the mutilated corpse of a 4th division officer was found in the sewers!" or something like that. Though it would be somewhat understandable, he thought. After all, their last encounter was not exactly a friendly one.

In Momotaro's opinion, it was your typical "in the wrong place at the wrong time" situation - one that had begun right after Momotaro read that ominous issue of a certain magazine, and accidentally ended with Mayuri being assigned to sewer cleaning (preferably for the rest of his life).

It could have happened to anyone, really!

But of course it had to happen to him. On days like this he really wished that someone else would live his life and he could just disappear into thin air.

Now that was something, he realized bitterly, that Mayuri would probably be more than willing to help him with.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Kurotsuchi Mayuri was sitting in the sewers of the Seireitei, leaning against the wall. It was silent down here. Nothing but the deep howling of the wind could be heard as it snuck in and out of the tunnels, suppressing the rattling of the little cleaning robots' cogs. There were five of them. He built them from household trash after the first few days when he realised that the tunnels had no end and he could find better use for his time than scrubbing things of highly suspicious origin off of the floor.

That "better use of time" at the moment meant staring at the slow flow of the sewer's dark, murky water and listening to the slight squeaking sounds the water carried. Rats must be living in the lower tunnels, Mayuri thought, although he couldn't imagine how that was possible. He knew that animals had spirits just as humans did, and they could even turn into hollows, but the idea that a spirit of a rat could go to the Soul Society sounded strange. Surely a rat had not much to grieve for in the living world, but their presence here showed a surprising ability of survival. He should catch one one day, and find out how they did it. But speaking of rodents... An overly familiar reiatsu was nearing, he noticed.

"Oh?" he said looking up. "The great Yamada-dono came to look at his hard working subordinate?" His words dripped with sarcasm. "What do you want? Despite all appearances, I'm busy."

It was interesting to see how the boy started to shiver under his gaze. It felt strangely reassuring, almost fascinating, as Momotaro's will weakened with every moment - the corners of his mouth twitched, fear started to glow in his eyes until he surrendered, turning his gaze uncomfortably to the dirty cob stones of the wall.

Mayuri almost laughed out loud. Here stood the man whom he had to call boss. The one whom he should follow in battles, whose decisions he should trust with his life. And someone who, like a child just scolded for a prank, couldn't even stand his gaze. It was ironic indeed.

"I... I need your help." Momotaro muttered.

"Hmm? What a surprise!" he smiled at the boy mockingly. "Forget it."

"But... I didn't even tell you..."

"I don't care. Now why don't you go away and leave me to my work? Unless you have something else to say?"

Desperation flashed in Momotaro's eyes.

"Someone answered in the magazine!" he explained hurriedly. "And now Captain Unohana wants me to react to it."

"Then react! I'm not interested."

Really! What did this boy think? Mayuri wondered. He'd made an idiot out of Mayuri, and now he was asking for his help?

"Don't you want to read it at least?"

"What for? Do you take me for a fool who is expecting his article to be accepted by this boring and prejudiced society? Don't mock me, Yamada! I have better things to do than read how they call me an inhuman monster."

Mayuri said the words out with an expressionless face – he really couldn't care less. Most people believed him to be a compassionless monster. Of course, just a few years ago most people believed that the Earth was as flat as a plate, and even now most people believed that the Soul Society was the embodiment of Heaven and the best of every possible plane. Most people were complete idiots, in Mayuri's opinion.

Momotaro looked at him uncertainly.

"They never called you an inhuman monster in it, Kurotsuchi-san!" he said, and seeing Mayuri's suspicious, disbelieving glare, he opened the paper and pushed it under his nose, "I'm serious! Look!"

And Mayuri did. He didn't doubt what Momotaro said was true - maybe the boy was an idiot but he wasn't a liar - yet it sounded too unbelievable to accept it so easily. And he was right.

The first sentence that got his attention was around the middle of the text. It said " ... and the writer, proving the defects of his education, is trying to convince us..." From that point on, the text became blurry to his eyes and only phrases like "naive", "logically weak theory structure", "scientifically inexperienced," and the worst of all, "...as a real 4th division mind..." stood out sharply.

Mayuri swallowed hard. A real 4th division mind? Now the writer did it! No one calls Kurotsuchi Mayuri a _cretin_ and lives!

"Give that to me!" he yelled and dragged the paper out from the boy's hand. "Who dares to... who dares to write things like these about me?" He glared at the page as if he expected it to answer, but no matter how hard he looked, the slanderer clearly wanted to keep his identity a secret, and only two lonely letters were sitting mysteriously at the corner of the sheet: U.K. "Bastard..." Mayuri muttered under his breath.

There could be thousands of names that could start with these letters. This monogram could belong practically to anyone in Seireitei!

"No sense of logic?" he growled and jumped to his feet. "Hnh! I will show this jackass just who is the naive one here!"

"So you will do it?" Momotaro yelled after him hopefully, but Mayuri was already long gone in the darkness and only the tunnels echoed his words.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
On the same afternoon the librarians of the Central Library noted a rather agitated looking young man with a bushy blue mane storming into the central reading room, and a few minutes later the rest of the visitors hurriedly leaving the same room, seemingly in an even more agitated manner. From time to time when they peeked through the doors they saw the young man barricaded behind a mountain of books and scrolls, either reading or writing furiously on parchments, until the sky turned dark outside.

This scene was repeated the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that too – the only difference was the size of the book mountains. Finally one day Mayuri wrote the last words and put his brush down with a satisfied smirk. Next day the report of the 4th division arrived to the editorial room of the Court of Pure Souls.

So did the response to it a month later. Suddenly, before they even realized what happened, the editorial office found itself in the middle of the strangest duel of words in the long history of Soul Society.

People were talking about it - not as much about the content as the sharp tongue of "Yamada" and the clever retorts of "U.K.", wondering about their identity. Many whispered that the monogram of the mocking and provocative U.K. actually hid Urahara Kisuke, while others argued with this, saying a captain could not possibly have enough time for this, and even if he had, the charming and restrained Captain of the 12th division wouldn't play such games.

Others seemed to know for a fact that the hot tempered Yamada Momotaro is but a stuttering boy from the "also crawled" category of the 4th division, but even they seemed to find it difficult to believe their own words, and slowly rumours started to spread about schizophrenia, dark pasts and childhood traumas.

Either the rumors were true or not, nobody knew it, but when anyone asked Captain Unohana about the boy, she only smiled and mentioned him among her best men.

Hundreds of letters arrived to the editorial office every day, and wagers were made at the tables of bars where the sake was cheap enough. The talk went on and on, and nobody seemed to know the solution to the mystery.

Then one day everything stopped just as abruptly as it had started.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Momotaro was busy in the office. Today he had special work; he had to check the list of the items requested by the shinigami. It was a simple enough work, he only needed to stamp white papers with red ink, then put them into pale blue folders and run with them from one desk to the other just to get another folder there, same like the one before, only yellow and full of raw grey papers that were only waiting for him to stamp them with black ink and rearrange them in those green folders, which he had to exchange for pale blue ones, and he could start the whole round again.

After 10 o'clock he seriously considered taking a look into the surgery room and asking the nurses to check if his bones were still where they should be, because he suspected that someone had stolen them and replaced them with lead bars.

After 11 o'clock he realised that he couldn't even tell the difference between the colours of the folders anymore and very possibly he already mixed them up long ago anyway.

After dinner he realised this was not such a big problem, since even if he closed his eyes he saw little blue and yellow folders, and he didn't even need to look to know where to stamp. Although a week later High Captain Yamamoto wasn't entirely sure why he had gotten 300 litres of scented bathing oil, a little rubber duck that sang some song starting, "If you want to have fun with a giraffe just stand on a stool..." and a leather bull whip instead of the sword polisher he ordered.

After 2 PM Momotaro felt the need for a real break and a visit to the teapot. He poured a cup of tea and then turned around, when suddenly the world went dark and warm and an invisible force knocked him off his feet, spilling the hot cup of tea down on his neck and lap, and soaking his black kimono.

"Oh, no," he muttered, as he tried to clean off the tea from his face with the sleeve of his clothes.

"You should watch where you step! You almost spilled that thing on me," said a cold voice over him.

Momotaro looked up. Mayuri stood in front of him, with pale face and dark rings under his eyes, which showed he had spent the last night awake again, probably studying or working, as he'd often done in the past few months.

"Ku... Kurotsuchi-san! What are you doing here?"

"I must get into the 12th division's databank, and you are going to get me in," he said commandingly.

For a short moment Momotaro thought he heard it wrong.

"Sorry?"

"Don't play deaf," Mayuri growled," I will not repeat myself! I have read every book in the library, and I need more information on the topic."

"You want to break in to the 12th squad?"

"Breaking in is such a rude thing to do," said Mayuri calmly, in an almost chiding tone. "No. We will only lose our way while cleaning the corridor."

"So you do want to break in! Kurotsuchi-san that's illegal!"

"And?"

"And? We can be kicked out for it... or jailed, or even executed! And it is also a lowly thing to do! Forget it!"

Mayuri looked at him wonderingly, and then suddenly leaned so close to him that Momotaro could feel the warmth of his breath on his skin.

"It's a brave thing to die for ones beliefs, or so they say." He said slowly in an unfathomable voice, and glared into Momotaro's eyes," Tell me, Yamada. Do you feel exceptionally brave today?"

Momotaro could feel his blood freeze in the veins under his eyes, as if he was looking into the eyes of a serpent - merciless, empty and hypnotic, ready to strike at any moment.

"Not... particularly..." he muttered.

"Then don't argue with me," said Mayuri calmly. This calmness was what scared Momotaro more than any yelling could. This calmness was the proof that Mayuri was not bluffing. "I said we are not breaking in," continued Mayuri. "You will arrange the worktable so that it will be our job to clean there. I will go there in the middle of the day, and won't even try to hide my presence. Nobody cares about a cleaner. No one will suspect a thing," he said with a satisfied grin.

As Momotaro watched him walking up and down in the room explaining his plans of an act that could cost both of them their jobs and maybe even their life with the same simplicity as one would talk about his plans of an evening in a pub with his friends, the memory of old days came to his mind.

When Momotaro started his fourth year at the academy, all the corridors resounded with the same name - the name of a certain freshman. It was clear at first glance that he was a spoiled, rich boy. He wasn't well groomed, but clearly only because he could allow himself not to be, and such arrogance radiated from him that someone who grew up in a dump wouldn't be able to afford. He was short and skinny, with long, bony limbs, nimble fingers and he wore a bored and irritated look in his eyes, as if he long ago decided that humankind was the least interesting race of the world and took a personal offence to the fact that despite this, they still dared to exist around him.

In the first few days, two of the seniors who mistook him for a mama's boy tried to bully him in the toilet. One of them ended up with abscesses where he would rather not show them, and the other, well... it took about a week for the healers of the 4th squad to find an antidote against whatever he breathed in, but still he salivated badly for at least another month.

It soon turned out the newcomer wasn't only dangerous, but ambitious too. He was in the top of his class in everything except maybe fighting, but only because he couldn't compensate for his lack of physical strength with studying or cheating.

Everyone was sure that as soon as he stepped out of the academy, he was immediately going to become an officer in one of the more important squads. Back than Momotaro also hoped that squad will be as far from him as possible. He didn't like that man. He always reminded him of a forest fire - as lethal, uncontrollable and without any common sense - but only now, seeing the malicious light in his eyes, did he realise just how right he was back then. Mayuri cared about nothing and nobody, and the best thing Momotaro could hope was not to become a sacrifice for his ambitions.

"Why are you doing this, Kurotsuchi-san?" he asked as he tried to crawl to his feet.

Mayuri, who was lost in his own thoughts, abruptly stopped.

"Why do I do what?" he asked.

"This is not what Captain Unohana commanded. You have written the requested article and there is no need to continue it. Let's just forget about U.K. and this whole mess!"

For a short moment Momotaro thought he would hit him, but Mayuri only glared at him with such anger that the boy unintentionally took a step backwards. However, Mayuri turned away without raising a hand against him, saying only a sharp, "No," as an answer.

"I don't care about Unohana, but that man, U.K... He is good." He said slowly, walking to the window. Then he turned around and looked into Momotaro's eyes with a cold, determined smile on his lips. "But I'm better. And I will prove that."  


* * *

  
 **Comments are love! If you enjoy reading this, please de let me know! :)**


	3. The Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Explanation note:**   
> 
> 
> \- Urahara refers to the time at some point as the Hour of the Horse. In the feudal Japan the Chinese horoscope was used as a time reference. This means that a day was cut up to 12 hours, each of them named after an animal from the Chinese horoscope. The day starts with the rat, and ends with the boar, so the Hour of the Horse is between 12PM and 2PM.
> 
>   
> \- When Urahara and the guard are talking about a strange name, they are talking about Mayuri. Mayuri's name is an unusual one! His surname could be written with two kanjis (with the kanji of black and the kanji of soil), but Tite Kubo used a single kanji, which has a more accurate meaning, but too short for a proper surname. His first name, 'Mayuri' is not a Japanese name and probably that's why it's written with katakanas.

  


* * *

  


Captain Urahara was looking ahead for a bit of quality time with his favorite magazine. It wasn't the kind of magazine men usually turn to for 'quality time', rather the type that people keep next to the toilet to while away the time, but Urahara never considered himself average.

He put a mug of cocoa and some cakes on the table – carefully arranged, so they would be easily reachable if needed – and opened the paper. In the past few months he always waited for the next issue and the article of the 4th squad it contained with a growing anticipation.

To be more accurate, he always waited for the reply of Yamada.

However, there was something odd about this one today: it looked familiar. The more Urahara read, the more he felt as if he'd seen it before. Not the words or the sentences, but the pattern of the idea behind it. As if he'd thought them before, wrote them before, as if they had troubled him before.

He kept thinking about this for the rest of the day, walking up and down in the laboratories and the corridors with furrowed eyebrows, trying to understand this sense of familiarity. At first he had just thought he'd found a similar mind, but in light of the earlier writings it didn't seem believable. The 12th division was full of minds similar to his, and what he had grown to appreciate in Yamada was exactly the difference between their ways of thinking. Somehow Yamada was always able to see things from an angle Urahara would have never thought about. He could never guess what Yamada would write next, and his adversary was always ready to point out the mistakes in Urahara's thinking. Urahara found this really intriguing.

This was probably the reason why this latest writing, which was so ready to agree with his ideas, seemed so unusual and so suspicious.

His doubts eventually led him to his old notes on the computers. To his great surprise they turned out to be well founded. Among his files he found an old project, unfinished and long forgotten. Nobody should have opened it for years, yet strangely the file access dates showed a very different picture.

"That cheeky little..." he muttered under his breath. This explained everything!

"Something is wrong, Captain?" asked a voice behind him. The 3rd seated officer Morihashi, a young man with a long pale face, stood behind him.

"See the date?" Urahara asked him as he pointed to the monitor.

The man only nodded.

"Do you remember who worked in the 6th computer room back then, in the Hour of the Horse?"

"Nobody, Captain. It was luncheon break and probably everyone left, except the system operators of the main computer."

"I see." Urahara said to nobody in particular.

They went to the reception together, to check the visitor registry. The registry was High Captain Yamamoto's requirement. Urahara always found it to be a nuisance, however he was really grateful for it now.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
A few minutes later the commander of the guards was flipping through the pages with a sweating temple and all the nervousness of someone caught neglecting his duty.

"It would help a lot if you told me what I should look for," he said as he scratched his head. "Just the usual ones were here that day. Scientists, assistants, and two new cleaners from the 4th division. Come to think of it...That pair was the strangest thing I have ever seen! And on top of it one of them had a mighty odd name! No law-abiding person has such a name! No, sir!" he said with a puff.

"What could be so strange about a name?" wondered Morihashi.

The guard scratched his head again.

"It's just that the surname was written with one kanji. A single kanji! And the first name was written with katakanas! He didn't even look like a foreigner!"

"Odd, indeed," said Urahara with a disinterested tone, but he peeked over the shoulder of the guard to steal a glance at the name.

"He said the old cleaners got injured, broken a leg or two maybe," the guard continued with a nervous grin. Judging from his expression, he could imagine very well just whohadbroken the legs of their predecessors. "He said they were the replacements."

Meanwhile, a lazy, satisfied grin appeared on Urahara's face as he spotted the name of the other cleaner. It was a more common name perhaps, but one which was much more interesting for him. Yamada felt clever? Well, not clever enough!

"Ne, Morihashi-san! Go back to the laboratories. I'm out for a few hours," he said.

"Where are you going?"

Urahara answered with a mystical smile:

"To the 4th division. I think it's time to pay a visit to a friend there!"  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
 _'Inhuman'and 'Unethical'._

These were two words Mayuri decided he never wanted to hear again in hislife. These were also the same words that were written with huge, red letters on the top of his petition as the explanation why Captain Unohana decided to refuse him. Mayuri had petitioned for permission to use the laboratories of the division to test his newest idea about the regenerating serum.

Over the past few months his little sparring in the magazine with U.K. had grown into more than he'd ever expected from it. That man, with his mocking style, got under his skin and one day after another Mayuri found himself waking up with the thought: 'Today I will show him!'

It was this thought that kept him working in the dusty libraries; that kept him awake late at nights over his notes as he was scribing one chemical formula after the other, even when the letters were seemingly disappearing into a haze in front of his eyes. He wanted to finish his serum. He wanted to prove he was right.

_'I will wipe that mocking grin off your face!'_

Of course, he didn't know if U.K. was really grinning, but he could imagine it and that was practically the same. Imagination was the only thing that had kept him alive as a child when the days grew dark, the doors were locked and that woman's fits of rage had started. It was a place of almost-reality, a place where he could hide, where colorful things were borne to amuse him.

Later, as the years passed, the word 'almost' started to fade away slowly.

Sometimes he imagined U.K. as a young man, tall and striking, other times as an old one, whose features were hardly visible under the wrinkles. Sometimes he even imagined him as a woman, but he had always quickly driven this thought away. It just couldn't happen. Not to him.

Sometimes when he saw men passing by him, smiling to themselves on the streets, he couldn't stop wondering whether they were U.K., mocking him. Somewhere deep inside he knew they weren't U.K., they couldn't be, after all U.K. didn't know how he looked; but even then it was difficult to stop himself from blasting them to hell with demon magic.

Then one day he realized something. U.K. had become an obsession for him! Mayuri hated obsessions. They just seemed to control the life of people too much for his liking and while he couldn't care about others, he didn't need any in his own life. He wanted to stop it, and there was no better way to do that than besting U.K. with the finished serum! If only Unohana would let him do a few experiments in the laboratories!

However, she didn't. 'Inhuman' and 'Unethical' – that was her answer. For Mayuri it meant 'conservative' and 'closed minded'.

He gave the paper one last hateful glare, and threw it into a trashcan.

Mayuri never heard of 'Freedom, Equality and Fraternity', but he would probably not approve them even if he had. Yet whenever he was in a bad mood, he could become very egalitarian and got an unsuppressible desire to share his plight with others. He wanted to kick something! Where was Momotaro when he was needed?  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Mayuri went to the offices to find Yamada, but to his great surprise his desk was empty.

"You there!" boomed a deep, raspy voice behind him.

Mayuri slowly turned around with a murderous look in his eyes, ready to pierce anyone with it who dared to cross his way today so mannerlessly. And then he looked up.

And up.

And still up a bit...

The man who towered above him could be about twice the height and maybe thrice the weight of him. His voice wasn't the only thing rough about him. His jaw was wide and over his high cheekbones sat a small pair of watery eyes, reminding Mayuri of a pig. His smell didn't help much either. He stank of sake and something that vaguely reminded Mayuri of the squad's canteen.

The canteen of the 4th division had its own, very characteristic smell that couldn't be confused with anything else. It was a mixture of the smell of half cooked cabbages, soy paste and raw fish that had fallen behind the counter about a month ago.

He straightened his back and glared into the man's eyes (or rather up into his nose) as menacingly as he could under the present circumstances.

"Are you talking to me?" he asked, but he felt his voice was considerably less confident than he wanted it to sound.

"Why? Do you see any other bug-eyed, useless trash of a rookie here?"

Mayuri looked him slowly up-and-down, memorizing his features carefully. Once he was important enough, this man would to be the first to die, he decided. Or the second, he corrected himself, the first will be U.K.!

"Who the hell are you, and why are you not at your post?" snarled the man.

"You are not my boss, are you? So there is no need for you to know my name. I'm here to speak to Yamada."

"Yamada?" he blinked in surprise and measured Mayuri carefully. His mouth curved into a scornful smile. "You are Kurotsuchi, aren't you? Yamada's little friend?" he sneered.

Mayuri could only stare at him. Momotaro and he friends? Now that was a pretty new way to approach their association.

The man gave him a wondering look, small eyes scanning his features as if he just remembered something, then continued:

"I have heard of you. You are the rookie who didn't work in the past three months at all."

"I had a special assignment."

"Special assignment, hmm?" he rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Well, Yamada is not here."

"That much I can see. But where is he? When will he come back?"

"He won't come back. He does not work here any longer."

"Why? Did he desert?"

The man laughed out loud.

"No, Kurotsuchi! He has been promoted." he said, leaning closer and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Someone at the 12th division learned that he wrote those articles in the 'Court of Pure Souls'. They say a few hours ago Captain Urahara himself came here to give him his new assignment! He got the position of a 6th ranked officer. He will work in the research team led by the Captain himself!"

For a moment Mayuri just stared at him with wide eyes, frozen in his movements, as if his brain just couldn't comprehend the words he heard. His lips slowly opened, but no sound came from them. This was probably the first time in his life when he couldn't answer anything immediately.

"And you have asked if I'm your boss." the man continued amusedly. "Well, I have got big news for you: yes, I'm your new boss!" He turned around, opened the door and yelled out: "Suzuka!"

A few moments later a young man appeared in the doorway. His face was red from running and he was holding a dirty rag and a small bucket of water in his hands.

"Yes?"

"I only need these," said the huge man as he took the tools from the boy. He turned back to the still stunned Mayuri. "Let me introduce you to Bucket-san and Mop-san!" and pushed them into Mayuri's hands. "You better befriend them, because from now on, I don't want to see you without them! Now get out of my sight and get your assignment from the staff, damn you!" he yelled. "Special assignment, my ass!" he muttered as he left the room.

Mayuri just stood there with a pale face and unfocused eyes. Only the corner of his lips twitched from time to time and his eyebrows climbed higher and higher on his forehead. He couldn't tell for how long he stood there like this, still holding the bucket and the mop in his hands, until the words had sunk in. Then he slowly turned around and walked out the office door with a straight back and slow, careful steps to the street, as if he was afraid he would fall apart.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
He didn't know where his legs carried him. He was hardly aware of the world around him. Faceless shadows passed right next to him, but they sounded as if they were very far away. Dimly lit stairs and dark corridors followed each other as if it wasn't even him who walked them, but they lived their own life and they were running next to him, drawing stripes of yellow light and dark shadow on his face with lamplight.

He heard his footsteps and knew they were his own, but they sounded foreign and distant. He felt as if he was in a nightmare and he just couldn't wake up!

How could an imbecile like Momotaro get into the 12th division and he didn't? How could anyone believe Momotaro wrote all those articles? How could anyone mix them up? He asked these questions for the thousandth time, but he couldn't find an answer.

If there was anything Mayuri truly despised in people, incompetence was it. And feeling not only incompetent but so incapable, so... soimperfect, was something that hurt more than anything he could ever imagine. This thought, this feeling tore at his soul with a thousand white-hot pain-claws. His chest felt as heavy as if the whole world was weighing on it. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he couldn't even think clearly. He felt small and weak, as if this weight could crush him any minute – a feeling so disgusting it burned his heart and filled it with hatred, dark and thick. Hatred towards the world, Momotaro, and the 12th division, but most of all, hatred towards himself.

What a fool, what a despicable, blind fool he was! How could he allow this to happen? How could he not foresee this?

As he was walking aimlessly, suddenly the walls of the corridor disappeared and he found himself in a room. The windows were open and the ghostly white curtains flipped and danced as the wind swept through between them, lifting the corners of the papers on the table. A strong gray and gold light glowed through the thin rice paper of the windowpanes and beyond them the sky was dark; fat clouds whirled above the red tiled rooftops of Seireitei and hid the sun from prying eyes. A storm was coming.

He tore his eyes away from the sight and looked around in the room. It was one of the many first aid rooms of the division. On the table a long, varnished, wooden box shone in the light; the box of the surgical instruments, he realized. Feverish thoughts raced through his mind, then with a sudden move he stepped to the table and opened the box. He grabbed a scalpel and raised it to eye level to take a better look at it.

He watched it with a mesmerized gaze, admiring the fineness of its blade and for a moment all his problems shrunk into insignificance in the light of a new idea that slowly took form in his mind.

Unohana could forbid him to experiment with his serum on others, but she had no right to prohibit him from experimenting with it on himself. She did not own his life, and even if she had the right to make decisions over it, what were her words worth against a scalpel?

First he needed a tissue sample and it didn't really matter if it belonged to him or to someone else.

He could feel the sharp point of the scalpel on his skin and a familiar shiver run down on his spine. As he felt the flesh giving way to the blade, calmness took over his soul. Somehow this movement, the feeling of the skin giving up its weak resistance and breaking under the press of the scalpel could calm him as nothing else. It was worth the pain. It could make him feel powerful again. He felt as if he regained some control over his own life.

Whenever he cut, he felt as if he was working, he was creating something. He felt he wasn't a complete failure. The world around him, with all its problems disappeared and became hardly more than an insignificant, hazy dream that enveloped him; a stage where he could put on his performance. While he had work to concentrate on, nothing else mattered.

Only a little deeper, he thought, just a little bit more and maybe he could also let out this poisonous pain that weighed on his heart with the blood.

But it was only the blood and nothing else. Always - just blood.

He watched it slowly flowing down on his arm, drawing shiny black lines on the matt texture of his kimono, painting half outlined glimmering serpents, devouring each other in an endless net; round patches glaring blindly into the world, like unseeing eyes; obsidian stalks seeking their paths towards the ground, embracing each other and growing into one.

He watched it until he felt his head lighten and the world was starting to dance around him, as if it was trying to sneak away from his sight. Only then did he stop the bleeding. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he didn't. What would that be like? What would that feel like? It would be an astonishing experiment, he was sure.

Alas, he would die then and this was something he just didn't want. Not yet.

He found some small glass plates in one of the boxes and placed the tissue on one of them and covered it with the other. He would sneak into one of the laboratories later, when the building turns empty and check a few things on this sample.

Now, however, he had other plans. First he needed to rest.

Then he would find out how to kill Momotaro.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
It was raining when Mayuri left the building. He ran through the streets with fast steps, while the wind was blowing the rain into his face, freezing his skin and blinding his eyes.

He remembered how (when he was a child and still paid attention to small things like this) he had often seen the servant women put their hands on their mouth before they could curse in anger.

"Words have power," they said. "A curse uttered aloud may hit harder than you wanted..."

Mayuri was never one for the superstitions of old housewives, but for once he really hoped they were right as he muttered a curse that just couldn't hit too hard:

"If there is a God, U.K. is soaking somewhere in this rain too!"

He stopped and looked around hopefully. He didn't know what he expected exactly, maybe some sign, a man screaming somewhere or falling out of the sky; anything that would hint that U.K. was suffering just as he did. Just a little sign that would show that luck hadn't completely forsaken him.

Yet God clearly didn't feel like proving his existence for Mayuri today and the only answer he got was a slow, heavy rumbling breaking through the thick, gray cover of the clouds and as if by magic the rain started to fall even harder, drenching his kimono down to his skin.

He shrugged disappointedly. Even the weather seemed to be against him, he thought. His wet clothes were hanging lifelessly from his limbs and little streams of water were running from his hair down on his face. As if the rain wasn't enough, cold wind swept through the street, freezing him to his bones. At least it also cooled his head down. As he huddled there, shooting murderous glares towards the sky from time to time, his earlier anger evaporated slowly, giving place to a tired bitterness.

He was fed up. He was fed up with the sewers, he was fed up with the shinigami, he was fed up with Yamada and generally he was fed up with the whole Seireitei! He couldn't even tell why was he still here anymore. He wasn't even a real shinigami to start with! He was a scientist! He had been born like this, he had a sword and a bit of reiatsu, but he never asked for either of them and by his opinion having them didn't mean he should feel obligated to spend his life chasing hollows and babysitting a few idiot souls who just couldn't get used to the idea that after they had died they had nothing to do in the living world.

He stood in the rain, face turned towards the sky and felt the cold drops running down on his cheeks as if they were icy teardrops; and for a brief moment Mayuri felt as if the sky was feeling for him. As if it was crying for his pain with tears he had lost long ago. It was a strange, twisted, foreign feeling, as if he could remember how it felt – not really crying, but the memory of crying. However as the water ran down his face and gathered under his chin, he felt his heart lighten. The pain of the betrayal was still there (it could never be forgotten), but it wasn't so blindingly hot, so sharp now.

Now he felt he could see clearly again. He wondered how Momotaro felt, with his newfound promotion. Was he enjoying the thought that he made a fool out of Mayuri again? Did he feel very astute now? Or was he hiding under a table in fear of him?

A malevolent smile crept on his face from this last thought.

Fate really hadn't forsaken him, he realized. He could imagine Momotaro, foolish little Momotaro, who couldn't put a sentence together alone to save his life, at the 12th division laboratories. He could imagine him standing beside the potion counter with shaking hands, unable to decide which potions should he mix together and the feeling of sweet satisfaction spread in his soul. He could imagine Momotaro fainting in the organic research laboratory or messing up the computers. He could imagine the surprise of the other scientists as they realize they were cheated. He could imagine their faces all too well!

His smile grew wider and wider until he wasn't smiling anymore but laughing with his full heart towards the rainy sky. It wasn't a joyful laughter; rather the tired and frustrated laughter of a man who just realized life just didn't worth to cry over it.

He didn't know for how long he had been standing there like this, laughing out all his tension, until his side hurt. Then he just crouched there, holding his head in his hands, shoulders shaking from suppressed chuckling as he tried to catch his breath slowly. Finally he sighed deeply. Now as the warmth brought by the laughter was gone, he felt the cold spreading in his limbs again. He had enough of this rain. He needed to find a place where he could warm up and think about what to do next.

As he straightened himself and looked up for a moment, he froze from the surprise. He did not expect anyone to be near, yet a blond man was standing at the other side of the street with an umbrella in one hand and a paper cone filled with minced ice sweetened with some red syrup in the other.

At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about him, just a man, tall and pale, clothed in a simple black kimono, like every other shinigami. Yet there was something in his stance that distinguished him from the average. He looked relaxed and careless yet there was a dangerous air around him that alarmed Mayuri's senses. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the man, examining every small movement of his features closely.

The man returned his gaze with dark eyes shining from the mixture of amusement and surprise.

Why? Mayuri wondered. Was he mocking him or was he just a fool who stared at everyone who came along? Did he actually see him or was he just gazing out of his head? Was he even thinking about him? His blood stirred from the thought, although even he wasn't sure why.

Then suddenly the man did something unexpected: he smiled at Mayuri.

And before Mayuri could think, he found himself smiling back. There was something confusing in this man, in his teasing, lazy smile that intrigued Mayuri, yet at the same time irritated him to the point where he wanted to step up to him and do something, he didn't know what, but something that would make him stop smiling.

As if he could read Mayuri's mind the man's smile widened into a cheeky grin.

What a fool – Mayuri thought amusedly and then he turned away from the man and walked down the street. Smiling back may have been a bit unexpected from him, but now he could care less! He was pleased! Momotaro was about to get his punishment for taking his rightful place and Mayuri didn't even need to raise a finger for it. Life was a cynical business indeed, but he loved it!

However, if Mayuri had known he had just smiled at U.K., the same person who took Momotaro into the 12th division, he probably wouldn't have appreciated the cynism of life so much. He probably would have had a stroke instead.

  


* * *

  
 **Liked it? Please comment!**   
**P.S:** Yes, the shonen-ai **IS** Urahara-Mayuri. I have other plans for Momotaro and pairing him up with either Mayuri or Urahara would be like sending a blind mouse into a hungry giant snake's liar with a 'please love me' card in his paws - simply too cruel and morbid! Ack! O.o


	4. The Hunter and the Tanuki

  


* * *

  


In spite of Mayuri's best hopes, Momotaro somehow managed to survive his first day at the 12th division. The secret was, as he later realized, in blending into the background and looking busy. He dreaded the possibility that someone would try to talk to him, even just to engage in a 'friendly conversation between scientists' with him. He was unlucky enough to accidentally overhear one such talk before, right after his arrival. It was about the functions of some of the organs of the hollows and Momotaro heard more disgusting and unsettling details than he ever wanted, before mercifully fainting at last. After someone poured a bucket of cold water over his head and he successfully regained consciousness (and assured the strange, huge, dark skinned man in sunglasses, called 'Tessai' or some such, that yes, he felt completely alright and no, he did NOT need emergency resuscitation), he resolved himself to never participate in it again.

Since then, he had tiptoed around the corridors, slipping from one shadow to another and if he saw anyone coming too close to him, he stopped at the nearest object (anything was suitable, a blackboard, a vial of colorful potion, a plant pot, the wall...) and glared at it with a hard and serious look, exactly as he saw Mayuri doing whenever he was deep in his thoughts. In order to be more convincing, sometimes Momotaro hummed very gloomily and from time to time tapped on his chin. He felt that this must look very scientist-like, because everyone who saw him gave him a long, puzzled look, and walked away. Really fast.

Now it was afternoon and Momotaro was starting to calm down a bit. It was almost the end of the working hours and he still seemed to be alive; what's more, he had successfully avoided Urahara all day! It wasn't that he disliked Urahara, it was just that the captain seemed to be a bit too excited about his presence and Momotaro long ago learned that someone who was that excited usually had _'expectations'_.

Ever since he arrived Urahara had wanted to _'talk'_ to him about his inventions and this was a talk Momotaro wasn't looking forward to. He knew he should have told the Captain the truth about the articles, but he couldn't even imagine how. He couldn't just stand in front of him and tell him: "Captain Urahara, you seem to misunderstand the whole situation! I'm not your 'Yamada'! I mean, I am Yamada, just not the Yamada you think! Because he is not even Yamada!" That was impossible!

All he'd ever wanted was a calm life, where nobody knew about his existence and now he was sure he had ended up as number one on Kurotsuchi Mayuri's personal death list instead.

To Momotaro this whole situation seemed a bit unfair. He had only asked for a little help for those articles and had never even dreamed about getting into the 12th division! He liked the 4th well enough, it was like having a family and he got nausea from the smell of formaldehyde, which the laboratories of the 12th reeked of. He was here now only because he was too surprised to say no when Captain Urahara had cornered him with his offer. You don't say _no_ to a captain when he offers you a job! Momotaro wasn't keen on the etiquette, but he had the feeling that would probably count as impolite or something.

Things became even worse when one of the assistant boys at the 12th division asked him what he wanted tell the editorial office of the Court of Pure Souls; who wanted to know when Momotaro would have the time to give them an interview? When Momotaro asked why they would want to have an interview with him, the boy looked at him in surprise.

"Yamada-san, didn't you know? You are a star!" he said. "Yesterday you were just a cleaning boy at the 4th division and today you are one of the most important officers in an elite squad and one of the favored ones of Captain Urahara himself. Of course the Court of the Pure Souls wants an interview with you! This is like a fairy tale about talent and luck! Everyone envies you!"

That moment Momotaro realized he was dead (although in fact he was indeed dead, since he was in the Soul Society, but now this was unimportant). Oh, he could still breathe and walk, but this was only temporary. He would soon found with the freshest issue of the Pure Souls stuffed down his throat, floating in the sewers, if Mayuri had seen that interview. Or maybe pinned to the wall, high up, with his own sword in his chest, glaring into the nothingness with glassy eyes, if Urahara ever realizes that he made a fool out of him.

Somewhere in the offices on one of the tables a small, Chinese clock (home made by one of the lab assistants) marked with loud 'baa'-ing that the sun was entering into the Hour of the Sheep.

Only a few more hours, thought Momotaro, and he could go home and forget about this nightmare for at least... well until the next morning. That is, if he survived the night and Mayuri didn't kill him first.

He sighed heavily. He was standing in the hall now and somewhere outside, on the other side of the front door, confident steps were nearing. Momotaro looked around desperately for any object he could hide behind or stare at but the place was heartlessly empty, excepting a tansu, an old, battered cabinet, and a potted plant that was shriveling next to the wall. The steps came closer and closer and Momotaro quickly crouched behind the pot first, as if he was examining it, but as his sight fell on the cabinet a new idea came to his mind.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Urahara entered the hall and closed the door behind him. He spun the handle of his umbrella between his fingers and a thousand icy raindrops whirled through the room, sprinkling the walls with a cool spray of water. He had had a good day. He had not only put an end to his game with Yamada and had him in his team, but also it seemed like somebody had mis-programmed the weather controlling machine (purely by _accident_ , of course) and now the rain was falling as heavily as if it wanted to make up for all the lost years!

It was a pretty good storm, he thought. It had everything in abundance: wind, rain, lightning and even some thundering too! This was its great chance to be recognized by the people of the Soul Society and it wanted to use it to the fullest extent.

And it did, indeed. Seireitei now looked more like a swarming anthill than a military organization!

When Urahara had walked the streets with his umbrella in his hand, he could hear the people swearing loudly as they ran past him, looking for a dry spot to hide from the rain. He didn't wear his captain's haori because he had wanted to have a stroll without being recognized, but soon he started to question the wisdom of this idea. While Urahara had never put too much emphasis on the opinion of others, when the hundredth shinigami ran by him loudly cursing his (and every other 12th division member's) mother, he had started to feel a bit unappreciated.

It seemed as if people wanted the same old, stale routines in their lives, not understanding the fun of variety. Sunshine was alright, but it was just one among weather's many delights. There was the fresh wind, the heavy smell of the earth after the rain, the cool mist in the air...

He closed his umbrella and stepped up to the old cabinet to put it away. His thoughts turned to the young man in a dirty, ragged kimono – the only one who didn't run, who could smile even in the rain. Well, not exactly smiled, but laughed, and it wasn't even a nice kind of laughter either, but still it was a refreshing change. Urahara's lips curled upwards as he remembered the excitement he felt back then. Such an unusual young man he was! Someone who would be intriguing to get to know, he thought as he opened the cabinet door.

He suddenly stopped and blinked.

The cabinet blinked back, nervously.

"Yamada-san! _What_ are you doing there?"

"Erm..." said Momotaro. "Erm..." he repeated. "I'm checking it out!"

"My cabinet?"

Momotaro grinned sheepishly.

"I... I guess so."

Urahara lowered his head with a sigh.

While in general he wasn't against the idea of finding people in his cabinet, somehow Yamada Momotaro wasn't among those he wanted to find there! Not to mention the Yamada who wrote those articles was supposed to be a bold and headstrong man, not someone who hid in the furniture. It was difficult to believe this was the same person. Urahara felt a bit disappointed and a certain suspicion was starting to form in his mind. He quickly decided to test it. So he shrugged and sat down crossed-legged in front of the cabinet.

"Yamada-san, I need your help" he said quietly. "I want to make a petition to the Shinigami Research Institute. There is a chemical substance I want to ban from the grounds of Seireitei and I need every supporting vote. Yours too."

Momotaro grinned desperately and nodded. To squeeze any further into the far corner of the cabinet he would have needed triangular backbones. Chemical substance? Right! Sure! If it made Urahara happy, then he would vote! He would vote about _anything,_ really!

Seeing his expression, Urahara gave him a small, satisfied smile. If Momotaro hadn't been so scared he would have probably risked the thought that the captain was not so much smiling at him as smiling about him – however, at the moment he was just too busy with trembling to recognize this.

"I'm sure you want to know more about this substance, right, Yamada-san?" asked Urahara, thoughtfully. "After all, I can't expect you to vote in my favor about an unknown topic."

Another quick nod.

"It's called dihydrogen monoxide," continued Urahara on a serious tone. "It belongs to the family of hydro acids. It's an odorless, colorless and highly dangerous chemical. If breathed in, even in small amount it can cause heavy breathing, coughing, or even suffocation. In large quantities it can mess up the ion bases of any organism really badly. That can cause a slow and pretty messy death. And even though it is evidently the cause of many deaths in each year, it is more and more commonly used in Seireitei. Terrible, isn't it?"

"Uh... yes," agreed Momotaro.

He didn't have the faintest clue about what this dihydrothingie was, but if Urahara said it was dangerous, he was ready to believe it. In Momotaro's mind the world was a simple enough place, built on a few simple enough natural laws, like _'do what you are told'_ and _'the boss is always right'_. Should Urahara say that a secret society of rabid werebunnies were running Seireitei, Momotaro would have been ready to accept that too, although he probably would have his silent doubts.

He licked his dry lips and because he felt something more was expected from him he added hastily: "Terrible! It must be banned, indeed!"

Urahara watched him with a pondering look on his face. His eyes narrowed for a moment and he opened his mouth, probably to say something, but a wondering voice suddenly interrupted him:

"What are you talking about?"

Urahara froze as if he had been dropped into a tub of icy water and someone had put two frogs under his arms. He spun around, only to face a slightly annoyed Morihashi. He had completely forgotten about the man! They should have meet as soon as Urahara returned from the walk, but since he didn't arrive, the officer must have started to look for him. Morihashi could ruin everything, he realized.

The officer was leaning casually against the wall with a notepad in his hands. He must have been there for some time now and probably heard the whole conversation, because when he saw Urahara turning towards him, he raised an eyebrow:

"Banning dihydrogen monoxide?" he repeated Urahara's words with a dumbfound look in his eyes."But that's just –"

He didn't finish the sentence, however, because the captain quickly interrupted him.

"Now-now, Morihashi-san! You look impatient! Were you looking for me?"

The officer rolled his eyes, but he understood the allusion and dropped the issue.

"Yes sir. I only wanted to report that we found the problem in the weather-controlling system that caused the rain," he said and stared at Urahara pointedly. "It looks like _someone_ mis-programmed it. Someone who used _the main code_ to enter the room!"

"Oh, really?" said Urahara, amusedly. "Computer security really is lacking these days!"

"Indeed, sir. However I saw you were busy, so I thought it could wait."

"What? Division business can never wait!" said Urahara so cheerfully, that for a moment Momotaro couldn't decide if he was serious or not.

Morihashi must have had similar troubles, for momentarily he was glaring at Urahara with the surprise of a man who bought a small goldfish only to find it had grown into a prehistoric reptile in the goldfish bowl overnight.

"You... think so?" he muttered, hesitantly. "Are you all right, Captain?"

Urahara quickly nodded, grabbed Morihashi's arm and pulled him towards the corridor.

"Of course! Never been better! Now come, we must talk it all over _in the office_. Such serious talks belong _in the office_ after all, right? I'm sorry Yamada-san," he said, apologetically "but it seems we must finish this conversation later. I hope you can forgive me, but duty calls!"

Momotaro felt he could forgive him. Somehow he could.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Urahara pushed Morihashi through the office door and before he would shut it behind them he peeked around the great office room, to ensure nobody could overhear them.

The officer watched him warily for a while.

"You know that dihydrogen monoxide is H2O," he said. "It's just simple water."

"Of course," nodded Urahara, seriously. "You and I know this, but strangely enough our new colleague seems to lack even this basic knowledge of chemistry. He must have forgotten much since he wrote those articles... Did you make him drink a bit too much sake at his welcome party or something?"

Morihashi just stared at him blankly.

"Oh, never mind..." said Urahara.

"Do you think he plagiarized them?" asked Morihashi after some hesitation.

"That's not impossible, but I have my doubts. There is original research in those writings. Apart from the stuff stolen from our computers, of course." he added, with a bit of theatrical indignation.

"Whoever wrote them was someone with raw talent and a burning desire to be noticed by the world. But why would such a person not write under his own name?"

"Perhaps he wasn't in the position to do so. The Court of Pure Souls doesn't print articles from just anybody. It is not unheard of that someone in position would put his name on a subordinate's work," said Morihashi bitterly, but seeing Urahara's expression he quickly added, "Of course, I wouldn't imply anything about you, sir."

"Of course," sulked Urahara. "Let's take a look at his former subordinates, then."

And so they did. They had been browsing the personal files of the 4th division rookies on the computer for almost an hour already when Morihashi ran out of patience and asked:

"Just what are you looking for?"

"I don't know, but probably..." said the captain with a shrug, when suddenly his eyes lit up and he pointed at the monitor. "Something like this!"

Morihashi followed his movement.

"A name with a single kanji and katakanas? Just like the one the guard spoke about!"

The file was surprisingly short. Besides the common information, it only stated in few words that the rookie it belonged to didn't show any affinity towards healing magic or any kind of magic at all, and over the time he spent at the division, no development could be noted on the matter. He didn't seem any different from the other rookies at all, except for the photograph on the corner of the page – a picture of a young man with features that could almost be called exotic (eyes a bit rounder and a skin a bit darker than was common), and the awkward expression of someone who would just like to look good in the picture, but hadn't got any idea how. Urahara immediately recognized him.

"Hm? Just look who we have here!" he muttered with a surprised smile.

"Do you know him?"

"No," he shook his head "we just ran into each other today on the street. What do you think, Morihashi-san? How many people could be in the 4th division with such a name?"

"Not many sir, but there could be more than one. I hate to say this, but this doesn't prove anything."

"Maybe it doesn't, but..." he said with a mischievous smile as he fished a key out of one of the drawers. A key with a huge number 5 written on it."Please, Morihashi-san, send Yamada-san in! I would like to give him something. We will send an invitation to our friend."

"And if he doesn't accept it?"

"I am sure he will."  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
It was already dark when Momotaro headed towards home. As most shinigami, he too lived in the Seireitei. He had a small apartment in the outskirts, near the walls, in the block of the 4th division's flats. He knew since he didn't belong to that division any longer that he should move soon, but this thought saddened him – after all, this was the first place he could call home. Actually it wasn't a very good apartment to begin with, but it came with the position of an officer. It was on the second floor of an old house and whenever the wind blew, the whole building wavered like a tipsy old man on his way home, cracking and groaning in a raspy voice unfathomable tales of people long gone. The draught would sneak through between the plank and paper walls and made tiny, cold whirlwinds around the ankles, freezing the legs of the inhabitants. It had only two small rooms (one of them hardly bigger than a futon) and a kitchen, but in spite of all its problems, this little flat was better than anything Momotaro ever had before. It was home for him, and although it was small it was a great leap forward compared to the barracks of the 4th division, which always smelled like someone's sweaty socks and where the nights were loud either from snoring or from people arguing and accusing each other of snoring.

In the narrow, dimly lit alleys, the dark cobble stones, still wet from the earlier rain, dully reflected the yellow lights of the dirty street lanterns, and in the small puddles between them half drawn pictures of the surrounding buildings quivered. The streets were silent, only the barking of the dogs of Rukongai echoed in the distance as they gossiped about the events of the day. From a few houses pale yellow light and sounds of talking filtered through the paper of the windows as Momotaro passed by them, yet the streets were empty; no soul could be seen.

As he was walking, his heart started to beat faster and faster, his mouth turned dry and his breath burned his lips. The empty streets made him nervous. A shiver ran up his spine, bristling the little hairs on the back of his neck against his coat. He wanted to get home as fast as possible. It wasn't that he was afraid of the darkness, he was just afraid of the things which he could imagine into the darkness, now that Mayuri was probably out for his blood. The worst part of having a good imagination was that he could conceive countless ways to die on the streets, each one gorier than the next.

As he turned a corner, he heard the sound of wood breaking behind him and he felt his blood freeze in his veins. He turned around slowly towards the sound, his heart beating in his throat, but he could see nothing. Only a few crows, maybe a dozen or more, argued on a rooftop over some junk, flapping their ebony wings and scraping their talons on the glazed tiles. Suddenly they stopped their movements as they noticed Momotaro, their small, shiny, brown eyes full of suspicion, sizing him up for a moment, then in the next instant they were gone, only the black feathers swirling slowly on the back of the night wind towards the ground and the loud caws echoing among the walls showed that they were ever there.

"I should relax," muttered Momotaro as he licked his dry lips and allowed himself a little sigh of relief.

"Hmm? Why so tense?" a smirking mouth whispered into his ear in a chilling voice, so close he could feel the warmth of its breath. "Fearing something?"

The world froze for a moment and Momotaro with it. Suddenly he became as painfully aware of the cold draught whirling around his fingers, the emptiness of the street, the darkness of the night sky and the presence behind him as if he had awakened from a dream. His chest tightened and his heart skipped. He wanted to move, but his limbs felt heavy and stiff.

I am going to die, he thought.

He slowly turned his head, opened his mouth to say something, anything to save his life, but his mind was empty, only a single phrase repeated itself over and over again in it. He raised a trembling hand to brush his hair from his eyes as he backed up a few steps.

"Mayu..." he begun, but before he could even finish the word, a fast hit shoved him against the wall behind him. Momotaro didn't even see it coming, just fell victim of it like a lifeless doll and this scared him even more. He was paralyzed and the air had been squeezed out from his lungs from the hit – despite his slim form, Mayuri was surprisingly strong. Momotaro looked up at the other shinigami. He was standing in front of him with his sword in his hand.

"You are pathetic," stated Mayuri with disdain, as he casually raised the sword to Momotaro's nose, then across his face and poked it into the wall next to his ear. "I could have killed you at the moment you appeared," he carried on in a bored, apathetic tone, "then cut up your corpse and fed it to the rats in the sewers. That was how I planned it. You would have been dead before you could realize what had hit you." Suddenly he stopped as if he was thinking for a moment, and then he tilted his head to the side and smiled at Momotaro with a merciless, cruel smile. "However, how could I have seen that wonderful expression on your face then? That would have been such a waste!"

Yet Mayuri's expression quickly turned into a contemptuous frown again. "The great Yamada-dono!" he rolled his eyes mockingly. "Newly appointed 6th officer of the 12th division! Surely he just reaps the well earned rewards of his talents and hard work!" He paused for a moment, pulled the sword out of the wall with a determined movement and shook the plaster off from it. When he opened his mouth again, he continued in a grave tone: "That is my place."

Momotaro saw the moonlight reflecting from the edge of the blade. It looked sharp. Too sharp.

"Mayuri..."

"Silence! I'm not interested in your excuses. Either you will shut up or I will cut out your tongue."

With every word Momotaro tried to shrink smaller and smaller, until he was nothing more than a small, quivering heap of kimono with a pair of frightened eyes.

Seeing that Mayuri sighed disgustedly. "You aren't even worth killing!" he muttered and turned away, now talking to himself. "Shit! Right when Unohana denies my petition, here comes this wonderful opportunity! I could have gotten into the 12th division, into the best equipped laboratories of the world!" For a moment it seemed he had completely forgotten about Momotaro and he was walking up and down in front of him, talking with wide gestures, his sword still in his hands. Then he suddenly stopped and looked Momotaro in the eyes. "Just imagine what I could have done with equipment like that! I could have finished my serum. I could have thoroughly destroyed U.K.!"

"But..., but you can still do that!" whimpered Momotaro.

A hateful light flashed in Mayuri's eyes and he grabbed Momotaro's throat, squeezing hard. "Are you mocking me?" he hissed between his teeth.

"No!" he squeaked, gasping for breath. "I can get you in!"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I've got a key! And free access with the guards too! I can get you in when no one is there!"

Still holding Momotaro against the wall, Mayuri considered this for a while.

"But if you make a fool out of me again..."

"No, I would never...! I don't want to die yet."

This whole thing seemed like madness, but Momotaro didn't have any better ideas. For now, this had to do.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
They got into the building without any problem. The guards at the gate saluted to Momotaro and gave a perplexed look to Mayuri, but nobody tried to stop them. Scientists hurrying to work in the middle of the night were not an unusual sight. Ever since Urahara became captain, the gates were always open to anyone who wanted to work.

This is a creative workplace, he said. We only care about your achievements, not about how or when you do it!

The office of forty-six considered this thought very modern, and not only supported it, but held it as an example of initiative leadership for the other captains. Everyone else, however, especially those who knew Urahara, believed this was just a way to legitimize the fact that he never got up before noon.

Momotaro led Mayuri through the dark corridors to a heavy, metal door, with OrganicResearch Lab no. 5 written on it in huge black letters.

"I have a key, as does every officer," said Momotaro as he unlocked and opened the door and they entered the room. "I got an assignment to..." he started to explain as he turned on the lights, but he couldn't finish the sentence, because Mayuri's voice suddenly interrupted him.

"Is this the lab you work in?" Strangely his voice was weaker than normal.

For a moment Momotaro wondered if this was some kind of a trick question. It sounded like one.

"Yes, I..." He suddenly stopped. This was indeed a trick question, he realized! Mayuri was jealous! "I mean no! Absolutely not! I just got this key and..."

And he faltered. His brain just registered what he was seeing although it was hard to believe.

The other shinigami was flushing red, Momotaro noticed. Kurotsuchi Mayuri was damn well blushing! And not only that, but his hands were shaking, his eyes wide and shining and such a soft little smile played on his lips, as on a teenage boy's who just fell in love!

"Incredible." Mayuri muttered as he touched one instrument after the other, running shaking fingertips over their polished surfaces. "So beautiful, so wonderful! Just imagine, Yamada! With a laboratory like this there is nothing I couldn't do! There would be nothing I couldn't learn!" He stopped, thinking for a moment as a thought nested in his mind, slowly filling his eyes with mad fire, painting a wide, feral grin on his face. When he opened his mouth again, his voice was calm and icy cold: "I could challenge the gods themselves!"

Momotaro watched him and got a terrifying feeling, as if he could catch a glimpse or shadow of a dark future. It was a sinister picture indeed, one filled with screams and terror.

Mayuri slowly walked around the lab, touching everything as if he wanted to make sure they were real, they wouldn't disappear like a dream. Sometimes he commented on them, explaining their usage, their abilities, probably to Momotaro, or probably just to himself. He felt himself in his element, this was clear to Momotaro, although he couldn't explain how. Somehow he felt as if Mayuri started to exist here, surrounded with these tools. As if he became more solid, more real now than ever before.

Or he just became more scary here than ever before, thought Momotaro.

There was a computer in the corner of the room. Mayuri turned it on.

"The instruments are connected into a network, so they would send every measurement automatically into the databank. That means I can't use them without activating the network," he explained seeing Momotaro's confused look. "It's the same as it was in the academy labs."

Momotaro shrugged. He used to sleep over those lessons. Not knowing what to do with himself he looked around. There was a shiny, steel operating table in the middle of the room which attracted his attention, but as he tried to climb up and dangle his legs from the edge he slipped and fell onto it backwards with a loud 'bang'.

"It must be very difficult to be that stupid," he heard Mayuri muttering under his breath, without even looking up from the computer. He was working hard on something; judging from the little gray window that asked for a password, he was probably hacking the system. "But at least in light of your lack of intelligence it's a kind of relief to know you will probably never find a willing enough female to reproduce with, Yamada. Although I doubt it could make the population of Seireitei any more irritating."

"It's strange to hear you saying this!" smiled Momotaro happily, forgetting his embarrassment, because he was delighted by the chance to speak about this topic. "I haven't told this to anyone yet, but soon I will get married!"

"You?"

"Yes!"

Mayuri considered this answer for a few moments before cautiously asking:

"To a human?"

"Wha..." Momotaro's eyes widened in surprise, but he forgot it in the next moment. "Of course! She is incredible you know! She has the most beautiful black hair in Seireitei."

"Every second woman has black hair in Seireitei." stated Mayuri dryly, but the other shinigami didn't even hear him.

"She is so sweet, you should see her!" Momotaro continued. "Her name is Mitsuko and she works as a maid in the Kuchiki household."

"Ah, a servant. I see."

"Well... She is not a shinigami, that's true, but you would never tell this from the look of her, she is so smart. She went to work there because we are saving money now. Once we get married, we want to buy a silk dyer farm. She worked as a silk dyer in the living world, you know. I will leave Seireitei too, and help her out. Being a shinigami is good thing, because we can help the souls and protect the world, but it's a bit dangerous. I would like to see my child grow up," said Momotaro, contemplatively. "Mitsuko is pregnant! She just told me yesterday. I am going to be a father!"

"Yes. And what do you expect from me? Applause?"

"Now..."

"You made a kid, and that's something any animal could do."

"Wha... Listen..."

"You acted out of sexual instincts, just as nature and evolution programmed you, so the fact that your girlfriend is pregnant is hardly to your merit. You were just a puppet in the toolkit of race preservation."

"Hey! Don't make it sound as if I had no say in it! It wasn't just nature, you know!"

"Say? I sincerely doubt that the brain function that got the main part in that act you mentioned had any kind of relationship with any type of function requiring intelligence. Like speaking for example. Now, if you had created that brat with your two hands, I would have understood why you are so proud of yourself."

"Hands?" Momotaro turned red like a lobster from the picture that slowly emerged from some well-hidden, dark corner of his imagination. "I-I-I d-don't re-really think tha-that would work," he stuttered in his embarrassment. "Does-doesn't it need some bo-body fluids too?"

Mayuri's hands stopped in the air in the middle of their movement, as he slowly turned and stared at Momotaro in confusion, but as the realization slowly sank in his mind he just sighed tiredly and turned back to his work on the computer, muttering only one word under is breath:

"Cretin."

Momotaro stared at the middle of his back, still blushing madly, but with a hurt expression on his face. He didn't mind too much that Mayuri called him a cretin – really, people called him many things in his life already and Mayuri spat insults so easily that Momotaro could hardly notice them anymore – but he was about to became a father! The most joyful moment of his life was nearing (or at least everyone told him so) and the other man belittled it so easily! This didn't feel right!

"There is just one thing I can't understand now," he said sharply. "If it is so animalistic and simple and whatever you called it, then how come I never see any women around you?"

"Did it never occur in your bean sized brain that there are people on this plane who have higher goals in this life than chasing women?"

"Chasing indeed! Seeing how fast they would run in the opposite direction after they saw you! It must be difficult to find a girlfriend when you creep the hell out of everyone!"

"I am NOT creepy! Such a rude thing to say!"

"You called me cretin. Isn't that rude too?"

"No, because that was just a statement of a fact."

"Creepy too!"

"Tell me, Yamada! Don't you want to go outside and take a look at the kitchen of the offices? Probably you could find a banana there and then you could try to peel it with your legs and push it up into your nose like a good monkey. I'm just asking because if you don't shut up, you won't see the birth of your son and that's a statement of a fact too!"

This seemingly worked. Momotaro sat silently for a while on the operating table.

"Daughter" said Momotaro a bit later, lost in his thoughts. "I think it will be a girl. Or at least I hope so..."

"Oh, dear Gods! What did I do to deserve this conversation?" muttered Mayuri, bitterly.

"I would love to have a daughter! I would call her maybe Yuriko."

"Whoops! I know! I forgot to kill you on the street."

"I would like to give her a name that is simple but sweet," explained Momotaro, wishfully. "Hanako maybe. My little flower..."

"Really? And if is a boy, he would be Hanataro, I wonder?"

Momotaro, oblivious to the sarcasm in Mayuri's voice, flashed a gleaming smile at him.

"Yes!" he said cheerfully. "That's a cute name too!"

"Of course. And about a hundred years from now the whole Seireitei would laugh at a shinigami called 'flower boy' and you find this cute. Momotaro, you are a tragedy, and one I wouldn't buy a ticket to if it were being played in the theaters, because I would be afraid I would laugh too loudly."

"You will understand once you become a father yourself. Who knows? Maybe you will have a beautiful daughter too, then you will understand what it means to be a proud parent and you will protect her even from the wind!"  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
While the two shinigami argued in the lab, they didn't even suspect that through a little camera two pairs of eyes were watching them.

"We have got proof now, sir. Do you want us to arrest them?" asked Morihashi, but Urahara didn't answer. He was just leaning on his elbow, watching the monitor with a pondering look on his face.

"Captain?" tried Morihashi again.

On the monitor Mayuri's partially blurred figure was explaining something about the nerve cells enthusiastically with wide gestures to Momotaro. Urahara was listening to them with a frown.

"He is wrong," said the captain, suddenly. "This is not how the nerve cells work."

Morihashi started to loose his patience. Those two in the lab were breaking the rules and the captain, instead of acting as his position would require it, was staring at the monitor as mesmerized as a child who got a magnifying glass and found an ant hill and was just about to find out what he should do with them.

"Of course he is wrong," he said with hardly hidden irritation in his voice. "After all, he is just a cleaner. All he knows is what he learned at the academy, as every other shinigami. You can't expect him to have the same knowledge as a member of our division. His field of specialization is the dirt on the floor, not cell-biology."

"Yet he could handle a debate with me," pointed out Urahara in a tone that precluded any further arguments.

Morihashi took a sharp breath. He really started to dislike the way this conversation was turning out.

"Don't look down on someone only because he has a different background than you," said Urahara. "His knowledge is lacking, he is hotheaded and he still believes he can do anything, but all he needs is a bit of a polishing, a lesson or two and one day he may become an extraordinary scientist."

"So you won't get them arrested?" It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

"No. We will let them go today," answered the captain, firmly. "I want that man in my division."

Morihashi didn't answer, but from the annoyed expression on his face it was clear that he considered this unacceptable. And even though Urahara took the issue casually, he knew the officer was probably right.

While it was Momotaro, the situation was simple; Urahara could take him over from the 4th division without any further problems. However, things were different when it came to Mayuri, because Momotaro, unlike Mayuri, had never applied to the 12th division before and didn't have the words 'unsuited due to personality issues' written with huge red letters on his file. A decision like this was considered permanent and Urahara knew he needed to have a good argument to bring the topic up for reconsideration.

He watched the monitor as the young man's long fingers danced over the keyboard, and his lips curved into a little, self-satisfied smile. In the next moment at the corner of the captain's monitor a little red sign popped up, indicating that someone had successfully hacked into the computer system.

Urahara sighed.

A _very good_ argument, indeed.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
The next afternoon Mayuri returned to work. While he wrote the articles for him, Momotaro arranged the worktable in a way so that he was free from any other job. But now that Momotaro was gone, there were no more excuses. He had to clean if he wanted to remain in the 13 protection squads. However, at least he was reassigned from the sewers to one of the residential districts.

It was one of the more wealthy parts of the town, little parks were hiding in the shadows of the houses and in the center of it the surface of a huge lake reflected the sunshine. There was a bridge over the water, or rather just a polished wooden ramp – like the one the nobles walked upon in the streets – with a railing and a roof, and Mayuri spent his afternoon leaning against its fence, warming in the late summer sun and scribing into a little notepad with a coal stick, while his little robots cleaned the place.

The water brought sounds from the lakeshore. Children, two young girls and a little boy, were playing in the small, nearby park. They looked about four or five years old in human years, but since time passed in the Soul Society in a different manner than in the living world, it was practically impossible to tell their ages. The girls had the same, black hair, thick lips and wore identical, simple kimonos, and Mayuri guessed they were probably siblings from a nearby mansion. They were bouncing a ball to each other, chanting cheerfully a little rhythmical rhyme and laughing in their high-pitched voices whenever one of them mistook a line.

_'An'ta gata doko sa?'_

_'Higo sa.'_

_'Higo doko sa?'_

_'Kumamoto sa.'_

Mayuri listened to them, sleepily leaning against the warm wood of the bridge fence. He, too, knew this rhyme well. When he was young, in the summer cottage of his father, through the wall he often heard the village children singing it. It was one of those little poems children would chant seemingly endlessly. Whenever they stopped, they started it again, faster and faster every time.

_'Kumamoto doko sa?_

_'Semba sa.'_

He closed his eyes and put the notepad down. The sun shone warmly, and the soft whispering of the wind, the sounds of the game (the chanting, the laughing, the dull thuds of the ball on the ground) all seemed to blend with the soft splashes of the lake, turning into a single lulling hum. He'd spent almost the whole night in the labs and now he was so tired and sleep was so alluring! Somewhere in a hidden corner of his mind he still heard the words, but he hardly noticed them anymore as he was dozing off.

_'Semba-yama niwa'_

_'Tanuki gaotte sa'_

He awoke a few minutes later to a loud knock repeating over and over again. One of his robots was making the noise. It had run against the railing, its little wheels reeling and clacking madly as it tried to push away from what got into its way. After a few moments it finally gave up, stopped and slowly backed away from the column. Mayuri watched with the satisfied smirk of a creator as it turned around to continue on its way in another direction.

And then a hand picked it up and put it down so it ran at full speed and loudly knocked against the column again. Mayuri's eyes widened in astonishment; a blond shinigami was crouching over his machine playing with it like a kid, with an amused look on his face!

The little robot turned away again but it couldn't get free from the shinigami. He picked it up, and this time he dropped it with its top down. The wheels span like the little legs of a huge bug, desperately struggling to catch anything it could use to turn upright.

Mayuri's jaw dropped in shock. What did this guy think? Nobody had the right to terrorize his inventions but he!

Finally, the robot managed to turn upright somehow and quickly jolted away, continuing its work. The stranger watched it with an amused smile.

_'Sore o ryoshi ga'_

He turned around to leave when he noticed Mayuri.

"Oh, I didn't want to bother you," he said with a smile, but suddenly stopped. With a few huge steps he appeared before the sitting man and leaned forward until their eyes leveled, with a movement so fast Mayuri involuntarily jerked backwards in surprise.

"Excuse me, but haven't we met before?"

Mayuri looked at him, his heart beating fast. The man was indeed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember from where. Then suddenly the realization hit him: of course the man looked so familiar! This was the same irritating, stupid blond guy who was grinning at him like mad in the rain just the day before!

"I don't think so," he answered, gravely.

"Strange. I could have sworn we have," said the blond man in theatrical surprise and straightened up again. "Clever little gadget, " he said motioning towards the robot. "It was built from such simple things, yet you managed to set it so it would evade obstacles and even turn back onto it's wheels when it has been turned over. I am impressed!"

Mayuri nodded and picked up his notes again with a tired sigh to return to his work. The other man was clearly trying to start a conversation, but he was not interested. The praise was welcome, but this man was clearly an idiot and his statement was pointless too. Mayuri knew his robots were cleverly made. He built them.

"I have never seen things like this before," continued the stranger. "Very practical."

Another nod.

_'Teppo de utte sa,'_

"I am a scientist too, but I never really tried my hands at mechanical things. I am more interested in the esoteric side of science." The man clearly didn't let the fact that this conversation was pretty one sided bother him. He continued to chatter on, while he caught another robot and casually tried to pick off one of its wheels. "Oh, and there are the organic researches, too! Now those are interesting! I even wrote articles about them."

Mayuri started to get annoyed. No matter how openly he ignored him, the other shinigami just didn't seem to catch his point and didn't want to leave. At the moment he looked like he was waiting for some kind of reaction (those who boasted usually did), but Mayuri really wasn't in that mood today. Or any other day, for that matter. People boasting in such a way were self-centered bastards in his opinion, and while he had generally nothing against being one, when it came to other self-centered bastards, his thoughts towards them mainly involved a few gallons of lamp oil and a lit match.

He couldn't suppress a small wistful smile thinking about this image.

_'Nite sa, yaite sa,'_

The blond shinigami, seeing this dreamy expression, took it as an encouragement and carried on with his explanation:

"Maybe you have read them too! They became really famous, you see. The whole Seireitei talked about them." The shinigami gave him another short, sharp, expectant look, but as he realized that Mayuri saw it he quickly continued as if nothing had happened: "It was published in the Court of Pure Souls, it was about re-growing body parts!"

_'Kutte sa.'_

The coal stick suddenly broke with a loud crack, leaving a sharp, black smear on the paper.

Mayuri looked up, very, very slowly. He couldn't believe his ears. Was this some kind of a joke? But why would anyone try to make fun of him with that? This didn't seem to make any sense at all, but Mayuri wanted to make sure. He grabbed his sword with his left hand (a movement kept carefully nonchalant) threw a fast glance around and when he was sure nobody could see them, stood up.

"How strange," he said, keeping his tone as innocent as he could. "I thought Yamada Momotaro of the 4th division wrote them. Would this mean you are him then?"

"No! Gods save me, no!" said the man with a theatrical laughter. When he stopped he thought a bit about it and suddenly broke into the most puzzling smile the other shinigami had ever seen: it started out as a strangely polite smirk, yet the way the corner of his mouth curved a bit higher and higher it turned into such a shrewd, all knowing grin, it sent shivers down on Mayuri's spine. "But I am sure you already knew this. I only wrote answers to his work as U.K."

_'Sore o kino ha de'_

_'Choito kakusu.'_

...

* * *

  
 **Explanation:**  
Tanuki is the japanese raccoon dog. It is often translated to raccoon, but that's not the same, and raccoon dog sounds strange for me, so I left it as tanuki.

Here is the raw, line-to-line translation of the nursery rhyme the children chant in the last scene. It is an existing ball-bouncing rhyme and not my work. To tell the truth I am not sure if it already existed back at the end of the XIX century, I only guess it did. If I am mistaken, then I am sorry!

**An'ta gata doko sa?** \- Where is your home?

**Higo sa.** \- It's Higo.

**Higo doko sa?** \- What place in Higo?

**Kumamoto sa.** \- It's Kumamoto

**Kumamoto doko sa?** \- What place in Kumamoto?

**Semba sa.** \- It's Semba.

**Semba-yama niwa** \- In the hills of Semba

**Tanuki gaotte sa** \- There lives a tanuki,

**Sore o ryoshi ga** \- Which a hunter shoots

**Teppo de utte sa** \- With a gun,

**Nite sa, yaite sa** \- Cooks, grills,

**Kutte sa.** \- And eats.

**Sore o kino ha de** \- And then he hides the remains

**Choito kakusu.** \- With the leaves of a tree.


	5. Moving In

  


* * *

  


_"I only wrote answers to his work as U.K."_

The words died off, overwhelmed by the following heavy, attentive silence (the kind with drum rolls in it). The tension in the air was almost tangible as Mayuri looked up and rose to his feet. In the corner of his mind Urahara could feel the other man's killing intent as it coiled and stirred like an awakening snake. It had been growing stronger and stronger since the moment their eyes met, but now it was roaming freely, slowly stifling the air, until...

...Nothing happened.

The killing intent suddenly weakened 'till it was almost completely gone. Urahara gave Mayuri a confused, searching glance. He expected something more, some kind of a reaction, protest or even anger, but the other shinigami just stood in front of him in hesitant silence with an expectant look in his narrowed, yellow eyes. His whole posture was suggesting that he was waiting for something, but for what Urahara could only guess.

He suppressed a disappointed sigh. If only he could provoke a confession or at least a betraying little word out of Mayuri, then they could end this game quickly! He could introduce himself and assure the other shinigami that he didn't intend to punish him. He had planned it all. Of course, it would be easier to simply tell Mayuri he knew all about him and Momotaro, but that would sound too much like blackmail and people tend to react not too well to that.

He turned around and leaned down to put the cleaning robot on the ground. He looked away only for a split second, but as he immediately realized, that was a mistake.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
As a noble, people had always treated Mayuri with fear and respect. Servants were already bowing before him when he was still so small that he couldn't even reach up to the table, and from day to day his tutors sang praises of his genius. Later, when he got into the Academy, nothing had changed. He breezed through the courses without even trying much, always getting the highest possible grades. He never expected anything less than a prestigious position in the best division. He knew he deserved it.

And then he got into the 4th.

As a rookie.

Cleaning the sewers.

He got stuck in a place where his abilities couldn't shine, couldn't grow, forced to do a mundane job which he felt was far beneath him; and all this only because of a trumped up false reason, a subjective judgment over his personality, based on the nonexistent idea of morality. It was unjust and painfully humiliating.

Yet, he fought his impotent rage, hid it away deep inside himself, behind sneering sarcasm and smoldering dissatisfaction and kept studying night after night, patiently working and waiting for a chance to show the world what a mistake they had made. And when his opportunity came at last in the form of Momotaro's little article, suddenly U.K. appeared and questioned with an outrageous ease the one thing Mayuri based his every hope and belief on: that when it comes to science, he is an unmatched genius.

All his anger, hatred and self-doubts that had been boiling and coalescing in his heart for all this time, gathering slowly like a storm cloud...

_"I only wrote answers to his work as U.K."_

...Upon hearing these words, they broke out all at once, turning on this convenient target: the man in front of him. Everything he hated, everything he feared and everything he wanted to break free from his whole life molded into a single form; and on him Mayuri unleashed all his rage the moment the man turned away and gave a chance.

Mayuri's anger flared into raw fury. His skin tingled and the spirit of his sword vibrated under his fingers with the unmistakable excited response to the battle lust rising in him. In a face-to-face sword fight, he never would have stood a chance against any proper shinigami – he never had the strength and stamina to learn real swordplay, but with a weapon like Jizo he didn't need it. A second cut was seldom necessary.

He bolted forward with his hand on the hilt of his zanpakuto with the intent to cleave the man in front of him in half in the same single, fluid motion with which he drew his blade.

Then suddenly everything froze.

... The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back and watching the sky through a layer of slightly murky water, while a little fish was chipping on his ear with mild curiosity.

He remembered a hand clasping on his wrist in a firm grip before the blade could cut into the flesh of his opponent and cold, grey eyes burning into his. His stomach clenched as the realization hit him: the man stopped his attack with a single hand without the slightest effort and then he had thrown him into the lake so fast Mayuri could hardly follow his movements! The difference between their levels was almost incomprehensible. He didn't end up in the lake out of luck; the man could have killed him if he had chosen too.

Yet, to Mayuri's greatest surprise, he simply didn't.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Urahara decided it was time to leave when he saw Mayuri standing up in the water with smoldering eyes behind a curtain of dripping wet, blue hair like an avenging (although momentary confused) water-spirit. At least he definitely had the temper of one, thought the blond shinigami. 

After the first shock passed, all he felt now was amused surprise. This was certainly not what he expected from this meeting, although he had to admit it was more like the Yamada who wrote those articles than his new officer under the same name.

Yet this meeting made one thing clear: with Mayuri, he needed a plan.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  


Momotaro just finished the usual weekly cleaning when someone knocked on the front door. Actually it was more like loud banging than knocking. When he rushed to open it, he found a dripping wet Mayuri standing on his doorstep.

"What happened to you?" asked Momotaro, shocked.

"I went swimming," answered his visitor stiffly.

"Fully clothed?"

Mayuri shot him a long, murderous glare.

"Precisely," he said at last, in a voice that could have frozen a volcano. "Get me a towel!"

A few moments later, while Momotaro was trying to make tea in the kitchen, Mayuri was sitting alone in the tiny living room, wrapped up in a single, huge bath towel; his clothes drying on the washing line outside.

He couldn't go back to the barracks in the middle of the day as wet as he was, because that would provoke too many stupid questions Mayuri just didn't feel like answering. He wanted to dry first, and he thought that Momotaro could provide help in this, but when the other shinigami handed him the towel he almost reconsidered.

"I got it from Mitsuko-san!" explained Momotaro proudly."She has such a wonderful taste!"

Mayuri eyed the cloth with disgust: it was fluffy and there were flowers on it. Pink flowers.

After a few moments when Momotaro was still not present, he stood up and walked around the room, to pass the time. He noticed a book lying on the table nearby. He picked it up and was flipping through it when a picture fell out from between the pages.

At first sight it looked like a simple drawing, something a child might do, provided said child was very keen on high fantasy novels. There was a huge, black dragon on it – or at least a huge, black blot that must have been a dragon, because the artist, who hadn't left anything to chance, drew a thick arrow pointing to its head (or at least what Mayuri suspected to be its head) and wrote next to it with katakanas:

DO-RA-GO-N!

And after that, between brackets:

BIG!

A few broken swords and stick figures dressed as shinigami were lying around it, arranged aesthetically, while the blot (Doragon! Big!) was trying to stomp out the guts of another shinigami with blazing blue hair, yellow eyes and huge fangs. The face of this victim also took on a strange, green color and he must have been suffering from some kind of horrible sickness, because normally nobody's tongue hangs out of their mouth that far. That guy could probably even lick his own eyebrows with it. Happy little letters were announcing to the world that this shinigami was Mayuri.

Mayuri just glared at the picture with a blank face. The sound of clattering cups made him jerk up his head.

Momotaro was standing in front of him with a tray in his hands and staring at the paper with wide eyes. His hands were shaking visibly and fat sweat-drops were running down his forehead. Thousands of thoughts screamed through his head. He had to say something before the other could react.

"I... I can explain..." Momotaro stammered in a trembling voice.

Mayuri gave him a tormented look and dropped the drawing back to the table.

"Don't! I am not interested."

Momotaro could feel the blood rise to his face.

"Can I help you with anything else?" he asked at last in the hope he could distract Mayuri from the drawing and silently prayed to any god of any religion who would be willing to listen to him. "I mean... aside from the towel."

With a sudden idea, Mayuri nodded, "Yes," and an evil little smirk lifted one corner of his mouth.

Seeing this Momotaro immediately regretted his question.

"The barracks don't provide me the peace I need for working effectively so I have decided to move in with you," Mayuri stated matter-of-factly.

Momotaro's jaw dropped in surprise. He was sure he'd heard something wrong. He had to!

"What?"

"Of course," explained Mayuri dryly, "If I were an officer of the 12th division, I would have my own flat and I would not need to bother with you, but sadly life is not that simple, now is it Yamada?"

"Are you serious? That's not possible!" cried out the small shinigami in desperation.

Mayuri frowned.

"You don't want me to live with you?" he asked sharply, accusingly.

Momotaro shuddered. He didn't like this expression on the other's face. This was the same I-will-nail-you-to-the-wall-and-I-can-even-see-what's-in-your-kidneys-not-to-mention-your-thoughts-so-don't-you-dare-to-lie-to-me kind of look that always made his bones feel like they turned into pudding jelly and made him wish he could hide under the earth where nobody could see him. He just couldn't lie to someone with that expression!

"It's not about that..."

"Just be honest and tell me the truth!" said Mayuri with a hurt look. "I can stand criticism."

Sure! And the moon is made of cheese, thought Momotaro with a forced smile.

Desperation flashed in his eyes. This was the moment, he knew, he should tell Mayuri what he thought and send him away. He was an officer! He should be able to do this much, even if Mayuri was looking at him like this...

"No! I mean... I would be glad to..." Momotaro just couldn't believe what he was about to say: "... to share my house with you."

Oh yes, and there is a place in hell where liars burn, he thought. However, as the consequences of the previous sentence started to sink in, he began to feel that living in hell with a demon compared quite favorably to living with Mayuri. There must be a way to back out from this situation! He needed an excuse, no, a good excuse, fast! One that would both work and keep him alive.

"But you wouldn't feel comfortable here. This flat is so small!" he blurted out at last. "There wouldn't even be enough space for your stuff and all..."

Silence fell on the room. A fly was buzzing somewhere. People were talking on the street.

Mayuri was looking at him with surprise.

"You don't need to worry," he said. "I have never expected much either from you or any of your belongings."

Momotaro's jaw dropped, again. He was sure he was just insulted, but Mayuri was looking at him with all the genuine, simple innocence of a man who just stated the most trivial and unchangeable fact of the world, known by everyone. He probably even meant his words to be comforting, realized Momotaro, dumbfounded. After all, Mayuri could be very straight forward when he wanted to insult someone, making it difficult to miss. In a certain manner he was wearing his heart on his sleeve (it was just not the kind of heart people usually want to see there). But now...

He was even smiling!

"And the space will be sufficient too," Mayuri continued, looking around. "I don't have many things."

Momotaro gave it up.

"Great," he muttered bitterly. "Wonderful. Move in whenever you want. No trouble at all!" He turned on his heels, walked out into the kitchen, sat down, closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the counter. He just couldn't believe this was happening to him! He should have only said no; and if he weren't Momotaro he could still do that. He could stand up, go into the living room, say NO, and everything would be all right.

He mused on this thought for a while. It sounded so easy, so simple.

But in the end, he knew he wouldn't do it. If he were some hero from a fantasy book or a big, black dragon, he could say it. He would probably be nasty and selfish, but then he needn't suffer the guy any longer. However, somewhere deep in his heart, he knew that probably even a miracle wouldn't help him and even as a big, black dragon, he would just be Yamada Momotaro in the end – only probably a bit more scaly.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. However, since he didn't want to bother anyone, he settled on banging his head into the counter. Repeatedly.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Mayuri was up early the next day. The sun had hardly passed through the hour of the Rabbit before he was walking the streets of Seireitei with books under his arms. The first night at Momotaro's little flat was even worse than he had expected; the place was too foreign and every little noise startled him out of his sleep, leaving him sore and tired in the morning. Still, he felt he made the right choice by leaving the barracks. Momotaro's abode, while it wasn't as comfortable as the Kurotsuchi households were, could indeed provide the peace Mayuri needed for his researches.

The thought of work brought U.K. into his mind again and Mayuri felt anger and shame rising in him. Now that he had some time to think over the events of their last meeting he could only curse himself for his own stupidity. He'd committed an unforgivable mistake, in the heat of the emotions he had acted without thinking! He had attacked another shinigami at plain daylight and he could only thank his good fortune that nobody was nearby to witness it and incriminate him – except of course U.K. himself but without a witness his word was only one shinigami's against another, with no overpowering value. Still, had Mayuri succeeded in killing him, there would have been an investigation and Mayuri would have gotten into huge trouble if he was suspected – and not only in the Seireitei.

By the laws, as a noble Mayuri could kill any peasant if he wanted to, for no more reason than feeling offended by the way he looked at him and nobody would have had the right to question his acts, but the death of a fellow shinigami was something entirely different. His heritage didn't matter among the walls of Seireitei, where every shinigami was seen as equal, even if they came from the lowliest, dirtiest part of Rukongai.

His clan, Kurotsuchi, was neither huge nor important, just one of the many average noble families; other clans didn't note their name or deeds, but they had been present in the Soul Society for many generations now.

Mayuri had two brothers, both of them older and born to a woman from a family respectable enough to be remembered even by his father. They got their place in the political life of the nobility, and Mayuri, as the least important son, had been sent to Seireitei to become a shinigami. In the well-oiled machine of a feudal noble family everyone had their role with the explicit purpose of strengthening the position of the clan. Dreams had no place here. Mayuri was the youngest son and family tradition sent the third son either into a church or the army.

As his father put it, the life of a shinigami offered the most chance for a young man to make his fame and fortune. As Mayuri saw it, it also offered uncountable chances to die a very honorable and ridiculously pointless death, but he rather didn't mention this. He was fairly sure his father wouldn't care anyway; not until his death served the family interests.

He could still remember their farewell as sharply as if it was only yesterday.

They were sitting in his father's private reception room. It was by far the most elegant part of the house, but its beauty was hidden in its small details – in the fine tatami that covered the floor, the teak-wood shelves and alcoves that shone with a warm glow in the afternoon sun, thanks to the gold dust the lacquer was enriched with and the lavish gilded murals on the walls. In spite of all its ornaments, however, it projected an air of well-calculated emptiness, making sure its guests never really felt at ease.

How typical of his father, Mayuri thought. The old man cared about appearance above everything else. Even then, as he was puffing on his exquisite, varnished pipe, he looked more like a dictator than a parent – not that Mayuri would care about either.

Among the many thoughts and feelings he attached in his mind to the idea of 'father', love hadn't had a place. When he was young, he only knew he had a father because the servants told him that he was the person who hired the new tutors when the nerves of the old ones gave up, and who wrote the scolding letters to Mayuri when, as a child, he had got himself into hot water. When they met, once or twice in a year, they hardly exchanged words. They had nothing to say to each other.

However, Mayuri felt this was exactly how it should be. Many people told him he resembled his father a lot (in small things mostly), but the more he learned about the man, the more he felt he couldn't care about him – they might have been relatives, but this didn't change the fact that they were really just strangers to each other.

"Mayuri," boomed a raspy voice.

Mayuri's mouth twitched.

_There._ That tone again, the one that made him feel like a servant. He knew the old man did it on purpose; of course, he would never miss the opportunity to remind his son of his place. He was an old kind of samurai and while he might have not expected love from his children, he did command respect.

"Were you paying attention?" the old man demanded sternly, his pale, yellow eyes shining coldly from his wrinkled and spotted face.

"Of course," Mayuri replied flatly.

Sliding doors stood open on the side of the room, through them one could see past the veranda to a small pond in the garden, surrounded by twisted pine trees and colorful, evergreen shrubs. Across the water lay a stone slab and an old servant was standing on it, feeding the carps from a small bucket.

"Good" sneered his father. "Then repeat what I said!"

Mayuri took a sharp breath and bit back a protesting comment.

"I shall never forget that I am representing the honor of our family in Seireitei and I shall serve my masters as best as I can." He almost spat the words – oh, how he despised them and the empty idea of honor and duty! They were like patina on iron, you only needed to scratch it a bit to see how different the truth that lies under it is. However his father had a reason to make him learn these rules. "The clan shares my success and my failure. I shall protect the name of the family and..."

A gray eyebrow arched sharply.

"And?"

"And mistakes shall be... redeemed and justice shall be brought by blood."

By his blood. This was the only way to protect the clan from the dishonor he might bring if he ever did something unforgivable, as had happened to many other clans before. In the system of feudal Japan and the Soul Society the individual rights never mattered, the family was the smallest noted entity, and should a member of it fall, the whole clan would pay for it.

"Don't forget that!" Said the old man, a bit more relaxed. It looked like the answer satisfied him and when he spoke again, his voice became softer. "Mayuri, you will serve your lords and you will act honorably, because I will not allow you to stain the name of Kurotsuchi. Should you fail, I will not hesitate to do what I have to."

Whether this was a promise or a threat, Mayuri still couldn't decide, but it didn't really matter – the point was the same. He would have to be more careful in the future if he wanted to get back to U.K. Should he be caught breaking the laws of Seireitei, he could lose more than his status as a shinigami.

He could lose his head.

And now this chance had more actuality than ever before.

He sighed heavily, but quickly chased away the grim thoughts as he caught the sight of the wooden gate of the Central Library. Should anything happen, his main concern still should be finishing his serum, he reminded himself. At the moment it was his only hope to break out from this cursed state. He couldn't publish his discoveries in the Court of Pure Souls anymore, but if he made a working potion he was sure people would start to listen to him. Even if nobody else did, at least the captain of the 12th would, he hoped, and then U.K. can go to the hell alongside everyone else.

Mayuri was so dazed by the many thoughts going through his mind as he walked the street that he didn't even notice a young girl running around the corner until a bony little shoulder slammed into his stomach. For a moment Mayuri thought he could easily count every star in the universe because all of them were dancing in front of his eyes – his books fell on the paving stones and he crouched over them in pain, trying to catch his breath.

"Huh?" he heard from the girl's direction - or at least he suspected it was from the girl's direction. It was difficult to tell from floor level. "Mister? !"

It was a small miracle she hadn't run out of air while she said that, because it seemed to go on for minutes! Then she fluttered her eyelashes prettily, bowed and ran away just as fast as she came without any attempt to help; but, of course, not before she accidentally kicked one of the books under a nearby bush.

Mayuri silently cursed every young girl with hard shoulders as he crawled back to his feet and started to pick up his books. He couldn't stop wondering whose idea it was that young girls squeaking in voices like a mouse high on helium, while fluttering their eyelashes and manhandling, well… men, were actually cute?

He was trying to pick up the book from under the bush when he heard voices from the other side.

"... But please don't mention we met today to anyone!" said the first voice, a chillingly familiar male one. "I told everyone that I would stay in the labs today and I didn't want to be bothered. If they learned that I left in secret, they wouldn't stop nagging me with their questions and this experiment is a rather delicate matter. I would rather keep it secret for a bit longer."

Secret experiments? Now Mayuri was interested! He tried to carefully peek out from among the leaves in the hope he could catch the sight of the speakers, but a rickshaw (with a man in an old straw hat sitting in it) stood on the other side of the bush. It looked like the mysterious stranger in the hat was one of the speakers, because through the spokes of the cart Mayuri could only see one pair of legs.

"Sure, don't worry!" said another voice, a pleasant, deep one. "Just don't forget to reciprocate!" and with that the rickshaw left, screeching lightly.

What Mayuri saw next was something he couldn't decide if he liked or not: U.K. was standing in front of him, waving his hand playfully after the rickshaw. The familiar voice belonged to him.

Mayuri groaned inwardly – if there was anybody he didn't want to meet now, it was that man! He shot a quick glance around in the hopes he could sneak away without being noticed.

The area of the Library was one of the few that were open to non-shinigami too, and it was quite

crowded so early in the morning. The air was heavy with the smell of oil and smoke and alongside the wide street, open storefronts displayed their wares: fruits, fish and other foods together with the essential accessories of everyday life. Merchants stood behind the counters, haggling loudly with customers, shinigami were hurrying to work, servants of the rich made their daily shopping rounds and housewives with children tagging after them were chatting cheerfully while they were viewing the goods.

Quite a few people were going about their business in big groups and Mayuri was just about to join the next one passing by when something peculiar caught his attention: on the other side of the street a black cat was sauntering casually under the bushes. It stopped for a moment at a nearby fish counter eyeing a nice, fat slice of salmon, then continued on its way.

This wasn't supposed to be strange because cats do this all the time, but Mayuri realized something was off about this one. Normal cats are rarely followed by ninjas, particularly not by rather conspicuous ones. In general, ninjas are masters of not being seen, but these two were failing miserably. Trailing animals surely wasn't part of the elite training of the second squad, mused Mayuri, especially not cats jumping over walls.

After they passed the street returned to normal and since U.K. was nowhere to be seen, Mayuri stood up and decided to leave. And that was the moment when he felt it.

Warm breath slid over on the nape of his neck, touching his earlobe and Mayuri froze as he heard an excited voice whispering conspiratorially in his ear:

"Who are we spying on?"

Mayuri almost jumped – he needed all his willpower to keep still and not betray his surprise. He knew the voice belonged to U.K. even without looking at him. This was just his luck. He turned slowly and stared the other straight in the eye. He couldn't even imagine how the man was able to sneak upon him without him noticing, but now the other shinigami was almost standing on his feet. This would have revolted him before, but now his attention was drawn to the nice smell of warm skin. There was the soft, clean smell of bathing soap and the raspy aroma of expensive tobacco, underlined with a much sharper, metallic scent of chemicals that lingered in every laboratory and a warm, spicy fragrance he just couldn't place.

"Would you stop doing this?" demanded Mayuri. He tried to keep his voice polite, but he knew the forced restraint was clearly distinct in it.

Yet, even if the other shinigami noticed, it didn't show; with his sparkling gray eyes, blond hair and wide smile he looked like the embodiment of absolute innocence as he asked:

"Doing what?"

Mayuri frowned.

"Standing this close to me!" he hissed through his teeth.

"Oh. I thought you were in the mood," said U.K. teasingly, but he backed away a bit. "Spying, I mean!" he added hastily with a disarming grin.

Mayuri was taken aback. He suspected the other wanted something with this strange play, but he couldn't even imagine what. Everyone he met considered him weird, maybe even frightening and definitely someone who was better to be avoided, yet this man almost looked like he was taking interest in him. This wasn't normal!

"By the way, your formula will not work," continued U.K. casually as he fished a scroll out of the arm of his kimono, pushing it into Mayuri's hand: "I think you might find this interesting..." he added. "But we can talk about this next time. Let's say... Sunday? You will know the time and place," and before Mayuri could have reacted in even the slightest way, he was gone with swift steps between the passers-by.

Mayuri just stood there dumbfounded and confused for a long time, glaring at the paper in his hands, while thousands of thoughts were screaming through his head. He couldn't help but feel he just missed something very important.

He tilted up his head as he heard a little noise. The same black cat he had seen before was now sitting in front of him on the wall. It almost looked as if it was laughing at him.

"What is it, fleabag?" scowled Mayuri.

Not too surprisingly the cat didn't answer, only blinked scornfully a few times before - with a quick jump - it was gone among the rooftops.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
It was already late afternoon by the time Momotaro was walking home from work with two heavy paper bags in his arms. He was dead tired, but he had to do the shopping because Mayuri stated on the very first day that this was the least he expected as compensation for the situation they were in. Not that Momotaro hadn't expected this; he was sure Mayuri would never let good blackmail material go to waste. He suspected, when they are both old grandfathers, toothless, with bent backs and long, flowing beards, Mayuri would still be trying to blackmail him into giving up his set of false teeth or toilet paper or whatever else old men value to him, saying:

_"If I were the officer of the 12th..."_

Momotaro couldn't help but feel the whole situation was kind of childish (to say the least), but there was no helping it. For someone as intelligent as Mayuri thought himself to be, he could be incredibly stupid sometimes; he only had to ask and Momotaro would have done almost anything for him.

The reason for this was that the world contained only four kinds of things for Momotaro: the things he ate, the things he tried to run away from, the things he tried to befriend and stones. Mayuri didn't look tasty, he was definitely not rock-like and Momotaro found it difficult to run away from him now, as they lived under the same roof. This left only one option open in Momotaro's mind: they ought to become friends!

After having spent so much time together in the past few days, in spite of all the vexing, he couldn't help but feel slightly attached to Mayuri. It was probably the same kind of suicidal affection a cat lover would feel towards an especially repulsive stray cat; one of those typical toms with a missing eye, ripped off ears and a sly, smashed face, which appears each morning in your garden, digs out your flowers and pees on your wall and when he has finished, he begs for milk, but bites your hand if you try to pet him. Of course you would like to kick him hard a few times and you feel annoyed with selfishness when, he leaves you without a second thought as soon as he is full, but when he reappears the next morning you will feed him again because, well, you have kind of gotten used to having him around. And there is also something endearing in the way he always returns for his milk.

Momotaro turned a corner into a narrow street with identical little houses and small estates hidden behind ramshackle walls, crammed together on both sides. His own flat was visible from here and Momotaro allowed himself a sigh of relief when he saw it was still standing. He had left it with a bad feeling that morning when he learned that he would arrive home later than Mayuri, and the other man would spend hours alone in it. He didn't know what he expected to find coming home, but he felt a crater in place of the building wouldn't surprise him. Or more likely: a crater in place of his neighbor's building.

A cat was napping lazily on the wall opposite the stairs; its black fur was shining in the afternoon light and its whiskers were fluttered sleepily with each breath it drew. When it noticed that someone was nearing, it lazily opened one yellow eye and shot a cold, _you-are-not-interesting, let-me-sleep_ glance (the one cats are so good at) towards Momotaro.

The shinigami watched it in amazement. He had always been fond of cats! He knew most of those that lived around, but he had never seen this particular one. It looked well fed and healthy, unlike most stray cats, and Momotaro couldn't resist the thousand year old mystical urge that awakes at times like this in most humans: to reach out and pet the cat with with a sheepish smile plastered on his face and chirping "Kitty!".

But his fingertips had hardly brushed the animal's fur, when its eyes snapped wide open and it hastily backed away just enough to make Momotaro unable to reach it. The shinigami stumbled against the wall and almost dropped the bags from his hands, but he didn't let himself be discouraged by that. He stood on tiptoe and to keep his balance he pressed against the bricks of the wall. He almost touched the cat again, before it leisurely got up and walked a few steps away. Then it lay down on its belly and stretched its limbs with a wide yawn full of white teeth and pink tongue.

"Come here, kitty! I won't hurt you!" Momotaro, guided by a sudden idea, quickly put the paper bags down and reached under the plank stairs of his house. He knew there must be a plate there somewhere that he occasionally used to feed the cats living in the neighborhood. He found it exactly where he put it; it was old, a bit dusty from being kept there, but cats had never complained about it. He fished out a bottle of milk from one of the bags and poured some in the plate and offered it to the cat.

"Come now! I give you yummy milk!" said Momotaro, beaming happily. "Who's the good kitty? Coostie-cute kitty-cat?"

The cat froze and its eyes widened until it looked like they were about to pop out. Then, after a moment of silence it raised one of its small, black paws in front of itself, clenched like a fist and then it slowly stretched its middle finger.

Momotaro's jaw dropped.

"Now-now," he said with a half hearted laugh, "for a moment it looked like you did that on purpose! But that's impossible..."

Momotaro's eyes widened. The cat stared back impudently.

A claw snapped out and for a moment it looked like the paw rose even higher

"Oh," Momotaro muttered, dumbfounded. "Err..."

He quickly picked up the bags and rushed into the house so fast he almost stumbled over his own legs.

-oOo-

When the cat saw Momotaro disappearing behind the door of his house, she jumped off the wall and rushed down the street. She had spent her whole day following a shinigami, watching from the shadows. Now she felt she had seen enough and she was less than happy about it. She had to find her friend and warn him before it was too late, before he made a terrible mistake and ruined both of their names for good! When she reached the border of the district, she pulled herself onto the low eaves of a villa. Rooftops spread around her like a barren, red and gray landscape of tiled peaks.

The core of Seireitei, the old town district, was built around the slopes of Senzaikyuu based on the ancient Chinese model of city design that was much liked in the past for its sophisticated elegance and impression of spaciousness. Wide roads led to the Shrine of Penitence, but behind the walls of the old district Seireitei grew in the natural way of cities, turning into a confusing, convoluted maze where sometimes even its residents lost their way. The rooftops offered the quickest way of traveling for anyone who wanted to make sure they would arrive wherever they intended to.

Jumping from house to house and over narrow lanes, she quickly reached the buildings of the 12th division compound. Nobody paid any attention to her as she passed by the guards; clearly, they didn't expect a cat to rob the place. She quickly located the window she was looking for and slipped through it with soundless movements.

The room she found herself in was dark in spite of the large, open windows. Only a tall, standing oil lamp gave light; painting long, sharp shadows on the walls. Two men were sitting at their office tables, doing the paperwork in resigned silence. They noticed the cat immediately.

"Well, if it isn't Yoruichi-san!" greeted Urahara cheerfully, jumping up from his seat. He looked as happy as if they hadn't met for ages, but Yoruichi guessed he was just glad for the diversion from the boring job.

Apparently the other man, Morihashi must have had the same doubts, because his eyebrows knotted into a stern frown for a moment, as he put down his brush.

"Greetings, Captain Shihouin!" He managed a polite, albeit curt nod, and then stood up. "I shall get you a tea and... some milk," he said glancing hesitantly towards the cat and left the room. Yoruichi wasn't thirsty and Morihashi had probably guessed this much and was just using this as an excuse to leave before his presence became bothersome. Only after the door closed behind him did Urahara allow himself a relieved sigh.

"Gods, you have saved me! That guy is a slave driver!"

"Why are you working with him again? Where is Hiyori?"

Urahara scratched his head, avoiding Yoruichi's gaze.

"I let her go home earlier today. This kind of job is not her strength," he muttered contritely.

Yoruichi's eyes narrowed disapprovingly. So far it looked like no job was Hiyori's strength unless it could be done by breaking someone's jaw, she thought.

Ever since Urahara became a captain, he had only problems with his second in command. Urahara, who never liked to give up on anyone, tried his best to befriend Hiyori (probably because she was his first vice-captain, or perhaps because he saw the troubled child in her), while others tolerated her because she was close to Captain Hirako and antagonizing a captain's favorite has never been a wise thing to do. Still the leaving of her ex-captain took a heavy toll on Hiyori and she seemed to be unable to understand that by doing her job she was not doing a personal favor for anyone but fulfilling her sworn duty towards the Gotei 13 as a shinigami. Now the only things she seemed to excel in were disobedience, screaming and complaining, leaving most of her part of desk work (which didn't require a loud mouth as much as patience) to her captain and the 3rd seat Morihashi to do.

Urahara averted his gaze for an instant. He knew well what Yoruichi was thinking but he'd rather avoid another futile argument over the topic, so in a swift change of subject, he asked:

"What can I thank for this wonderful visit?"

"I saw you in the Library today," Yoruichi said with sudden grimness in her voice. "I think there is something we should talk about."

"You were there in the Library?" repeated Urahara, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "But I didn't see you!"

"I noticed that," said Yoruichi with a nod and she felt an all knowing, teasing grin forming on her lips despite herself. "You were too busy with ogling a certain rookie to see anything else. You know, the one with the nice ass."

"I can assure you I can't even imagine what you are talking about," protested Urahara, his smile not even wavering.

"I bet you can't," muttered the cat sarcastically.

A sudden wind swept through the room, coming from the opened windows, carrying the sour scent of fallen leaves. The fire in the lamp flashed and flickered for a moment as if it was about to go out, breaking the shadows apart. The world changed for a heartbeat: familiar shapes turned into formless shadows of long fanged monsters, lurking in the corners, chasing each other behind the pale paper of the window. Then Urahara suddenly rose, stepped up to the lamp and shielded the fire from the wind with his hands. Darkness befell the place, blinding the eyes, but when he took his hands away, the flame was motionless again and the vision was gone.

"I followed him around today," said Yoruichi.

"Maa! I am sure there must be a law against this!"

"Well, I was curious. I have hardly seen you in the past month and it was only natural for me to want to know the reason!" protested the cat. "To tell the truth, I was kind of disappointed when I saw him. Why him of all people? But I guess it's just logical. I knew he is the kind of person whom you would find interesting."

Urahara shot a surprised glance at her; Yoruichi's voice was heavy with an unusual bitterness he had never noticed in her before. He said, carefully:

"You talk like you know him."

"I do. We..." she hesitated for a moment before finishing awkwardly, "have met before," but the look in her yellow eyes defied any further inquiring.

Urahara frowned, as if about to object, but he remained silent. If Yoruichi didn't want to talk about it, he would respect her wish, although he found it rather strange. Yoruichi and he had nothing to hide from each other, and the way she acted now filled him with concern. Why would she want to keep secrets from him?

"You should stay away from him," she continued quietly. "He will only get you into trouble."

"Trouble has never bothered you before. Why the sudden change now?" said Urahara with a smirk but his voice sounded unconvincing even to himself.

He feared that this would become another one of those _'you should/you shouldn't'_ arguments that had been occurring so frequently between them since his promotion to the post of a captain. Yoruichi seemed to have taken it into her head that she would turn him into a proper captain – it was she after all who had recommended him to the High Captain, so in a way she would share Urahara's failure too, if it happened. However, while he understood Yoruichi's worry, Urahara couldn't help but wish she had a bit more faith in his ability to make his own decisions. Her constant attention had slowly created a distance between them and Urahara felt their friendship continually weakening in the past year, losing its old intimacy. It troubled him, but he could do nothing about it. He hoped he could lighten her up with humor, but it only made Yoruichi even more irritated.

"That is not the same! Do not try to avoid the topic!" she snapped at him impatiently. Pausing for a moment to regain her composure, she drew a sharp breath and continued in a low, concerned tone, "You have no idea what kind of person that one is. His mother..."

"I _do_ know about _that_ ," interrupted Urahara. "I have heard the rumors, but I don't think that we are supposed to be bothered by them. You know how it is, you could execute half of Seireitei based on rumors and send the other half into the Maggots Nest."

Pacing up and down along his table, Urahara's eyes lit up and his voice became agitated.

"Do you know what the problem with the whole Soul Society is? That we are so afraid of danger! We over-secure everything. Why do we believe that what is different must also be wrong at the same time? We can't even stand changes in the weather! We close up people with different thoughts because they _could be_ dangerous? If there are dangers, we should note them, we should keep our eyes on them. We should find a way to control them and we should concentrate on their positive sides. Instead of that, what do we do now?" he sighed. "Hiding from danger and pretending that anything different does not exist, we will never achieve anything, except maybe we will conserve our existence until the end of time without the smallest step forward."

"Just look at the Living World! Living world people use electricity even in the smallest house and drinking water comes from the taps. Technology is available for everyone, while most people in Rukongai are still living in poverty like in the dark Middle Ages because the Office of 46 says that what was good for them for a millennium must be good for them now too. Shinigami still fight the hollows like they have been doing for many hundred years and nobody even tried to make it more effective. If only there could be a way to strengthen a soul... We could become more effective. We could make this world into a better place. However, for this I need people with abilities like his."

"But is there nobody else?" Yoruichi tried to sound reasonable, but exasperation underlay her tone. "For the sake of your division and your work, you should find someone less questionable!" she said, but Urahara only shook his head firmly.

"To get a different solution one always needs a different approach," he said. Then, because he didn't want to anger her, he added with a placating smile, "Can't we forget about that Yoruichi-san? All those things happened very long ago. Everyone deserves another chance."

The cat shrugged.

"Some may not be as open minded about this as you are."

"Probably," agreed Urahara,"but does it really matter? He passed the background check and got into the Gotei 13 so he is considered acceptable."

The cat shot a long, wondering glance towards him.

"Not... exactly," she said haltingly. It was she now who avoided the other's gaze. "When he applied to the Gotei 13 after the Academy, we indeed made the general background check on him as we do on everyone. It came back with a Red Flag."

Slightly disturbed, but not really surprised, a frown crossed Urahara's handsome features.

"Why is he free then? He should have been transported to the Maggots Nest immediately."

"Yes, that is the standard procedure, but apparently a certain amount of money slipped into the right pocket suddenly seemed to make everyone forget about this. Clan Kurotsuchi seems to be desperate to rise in rank and they don't spare money or trouble for it."

"You know about it yet you haven't reported it?"

"I had a reason not to," she said strictly, but Urahara didn't give up.

"What reason?" he asked seriously. He couldn't help but feel alarmed. Yoruichi was easygoing, but she took her job seriously, she would have never allowed such corruptions to go unpunished and Urahara couldn't stop wondering what could have caused it. Just what kind of relationship could be between her and Mayuri?

"That's not important now!" She said with a grave expression. "The importance is that that fool does not even try to lay low. The way he acts now, he draws too much attention and sooner or later someone will learn about the past and possibly about the bribe too. Then nothing will save him from the Maggots Nest." As she talked, her voice softened until it was almost pleading. "You are a captain; you can't afford to get dragged into such trouble!"

Urahara hesitated for a moment, studying her in the flickering lamplight, before answering.

"Thank you for your concern, Yoruichi-san, but... there is no need to worry."

Yoruichi's strained expression indicated that she wasn't convinced, but she saw no point in arguing any longer. If Urahara decided something, there was no stopping him, she knew this well, and she learned it again and again.

"You know what? I think you two deserve each other, you will make a fine pair," she said with a sigh, and even though she tried to smile, her voice was heavy with bitterness; unfamiliar to Urahara. "Both of you should be in the Maggots Nest, because you are just as crazy as he is."

"But Yoruichi-san!" said Urahara with a little laugh. "If I wasn't, how would my plan work?"

Outside, in front of the door, Morihashi's hand hovered over the handle for a moment.

"Maggots Nest, eh? And just what is that?" he muttered under his breath. He quickly arranged his features into a polite, disinterested mask, knocked on the door then entered. "Here is the tea," he said placing the cups in front of the captains. As he returned to his table to continue the paperwork, a little smile formed on his lips.

Yoruichi stayed for a bit longer after Morihashi entered with the refreshments. They talked about little nothings, about friends and rumors, and laughed as if nothing had happened. When she left at last, Urahara saw her out. The yard was dark and seemed to be empty as they passed through it in silence, but from behind the walls came the footsteps and muted bustle of shinigami and servants leaving the compound and hurrying home. Yellow spots, like giant fireflies, lit up and danced in the distance, one after the other – lanterns carried by patrolling troops glowing in the dim twilight – and the cool autumn wind carried the warm smell of charcoal smoke of braziers lit all over the city.

Yoruichi broke the silence again as she asked:

"So you will meet on Sunday?"

"Yes," nodded Urahara.

"Do you think he will come?" she wondered.

"He will definitely come. His curiosity won't let him not!"

They reached the compound gate. Pigeons cooed and fluttered somewhere above them under the eaves, arguing over the good sleeping places; and huge, black crows were soaring in the sky towards Rukongai. The world was preparing for the night.

"Well... I suppose I should wish you good luck," said the cat. "You will need it."

And before Urahara could answer anything, she was gone, her black fur melting into the darkness of the evening.

Urahara stood there for a long time, watching the lights even after she was gone. He was thinking about how Yoruichi had avoided answering his questions and how he couldn't even understand the answers. He wondered if this had meant that in spite of the smiles, the distance between them had grown larger than he had suspected before, and his heart sank. Was there trust between them no more?

He looked up at the night sky, where the first stars had started to awaken and their soft light was pulsing hesitantly as if they weren't sure it was their time already.

Urahara sighed heavily. He was worried about Yoruichi.  



	6. The Portrait of a Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** Please note that no animals were harmed during the making of this fic! We like mice! We really do! :)

  


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In the middle of the night Mayuri was awakened by the numb silence that had filled the room. After the years he had spent in the barracks, he found it difficult to get used to the quiet of Momotaro's house. Without the constant little noises of the dark (the snoring and the cracking of the wood of the veranda outside as the patrols passed by) he felt strangely lost. Even at home the nights were rarely this silent. The corridors were always full of the sounds of hurried steps, the soft rustling of kimonos and the subdued whispers of the servants. Especially on those nights...

He couldn't remember exactly the point when he got so used to the sounds of shouting, screaming and breaking furniture that it didn't bother him any longer, but he could recall that as a child there was a time he was so afraid of them he hid beside the cabinet and pulled the quilts over his head to silence them. On those nights, an old, wrinkled samurai with just a few strands of grey hair on his blotched head was always sitting in front of his door; whether to keep everyone outside or to make sure he remained inside, he never knew. Yet, even if his presence should have been reassuring, it wasn't, because it never ever occurred to Mayuri that he could be hurt physically. What he feared was rather the sheer irrationality of the situation and the unreasonable anger behind it - this was what hurt him, the sounds themselves.

But those years had passed (even if none too quickly), _that woman_ was dead and he could be free of her demons at last. Now, however, Mayuri had to find out that he couldn't sleep in silence. Life had quite an ironical kind of humor, he decided with a sigh.

He slowly wriggled out of the bed, kicking off the quilts to the corner and lit the old, fat oil lamp on the desk. There were still many hours left till sunrise and he needed to find some way to preoccupy himself before this silence got completely on his nerves, so he quickly dressed, made some tea and settled down at the desk with his notebook to recheck his calculations.

Yet, after hours melted into other hours, the shadows had softened in the room and hid under the tables and in the corners from the approaching dawn, Mayuri was still staring at the very same page. He couldn't concentrate - he was tired and his mind was roaming wildly in a hazy world between the lands of dream and reality. All he managed was scribing a few half sentences on the top of the page, before his hand started to live its own life. First, he just drew a line to the edge of the paper; he wasn't thinking about it, it just came, sneaked upon him and led his hand. Then came another and another, and before he knew what he was doing, he was looking into a face and he was dumbfounded when he realized whose.

He angrily crossed out the picture and threw the notebook into the corner.

"How pathetic," he muttered irately as he stood up, grabbed his cloak and stormed out into the morning, slamming the door behind himself.

When he returned many hours later, the sun was already high up in the sky and Momotaro was sitting with sleepy eyes in his night yukata at the kitchen counter nursing what seemed to be a cup of tea. He looked up in surprise when he noticed the other shinigami.

"Where have you been so early in the morning?" he asked, but Mayuri, instead of answering, just tossed a small vial to him. Momotaro fumbled it out of the air and inspected it. "What is this?"

"My serum," answered Mayuri tersely as he dropped down his overcoat then walked up to the kitchen table and put a small, brown box on it. After that, he fished out an injection needle from the pocket of his sleeve and put it down next to the box.

Hearing Mayuri's words, Momotaro's eyes widened.

"You have finished it? That's great!"

Mayuri humphed noncommitally and snatched the vial out of Momotaro's hands.

"In the past few days I have checked and rechecked all my formulas and couldn't find any error in them, no matter what U.K. says, so the only thing left now is testing it."

Momotaro watched while Mayuri filled the injection needle from the vial and put that on the table too.

"And what do you want to test that thing on? Rats?" he asked idly.

"This is not a simple drug. Normally only embryonic cells are able to develop into each kind of cell in the human body. Each other type of cell has a strict genetically controlled reproduction program, and is able only to copy itself. My serum changes this program, and while it is very likely to work on rats, I engineered it to human genetics," answered Mayuri grimly. "While the spirit system of the animals is similar to that of the humans', there is still a chance the results of animal tests would be partly or entirely invalid."

Momotaro stared at him blankly. No wonder, he thought, Mayuri was acting strange from time to time. Thinking about things like this 24/7 would do things to anyone's head.

"Don't worry," said Momotaro with something he hoped was an encouraging smile. "I'm sure you'll find someone willing. Who wouldn't want to get their lost arms or legs healed back? I am sure Captain Unohana would help if we asked her!"

Mayuri only snorted at the mention of his captain's name, suggesting he wasn't so sure, but instead of saying anything, he turned around and measured Momotaro with a thoughtful look.

"Tell me!" he said suddenly. "How are you feeling today?"

"Fine!" answered Momotaro with a small surprised smile. Mayuri never inquired about his wellbeing, but it felt good to know he cared. "I am still a bit sleepy, but well. Thanks for asking!"

However, his smile immediately froze on his face as he noticed the other shinigami's expression. It was intensely inquiring; maybe a bit too intensely – it looked much like something one would expect to see on creatures with fangs and claws hiding in the high grass.

"Are you sure?" A thin, dark eyebrow arched.

"Well..." Momotaro took a step backwards. He started to have a very bad feeling about this. "I think so. Why?"

Mayuri, instead of answering, started to slowly walk towards Momotaro, his eyes never leaving the other's. Momotaro shivered. Somewhere deep in his soul a little voice suggested that this was the time when he was supposed to turn on his heels and run out of the door as fast as he could. Mayuri was smiling!

"You are completely healthy." This wasn't a question. It was a statement. "You don't have any kind of viral or bacterial infection, do you? Any hereditary heart problems?"

Momotaro wasn't sure. He definitely felt like his heart would jump out of his chest and run away screaming any minute now. He also suspected this must be hereditary. He couldn't imagine there was a member of the human race who would feel different when Mayuri smiled at him like this. Gods, he thought, he could even count his teeth! They were very nice, white teeth, though, he added in his mind. It was kind of a pity Mayuri didn't want to give up his notions about science and start to sell whatever he used on them. Momotaro was sure he could get so much money for that thing, he could drown in it.

"No. Why?"

"Good," said Mayuri gladly. "Now tell me, are you missing any part of your body?"

Momotaro looked at him with an empty glare. Then comprehension dawned.

"Oh," he muttered. "Oh! Oh, no! Forget it! You won't give that thing to me!"

Mayuri's smile fainted a bit, but it didn't disappear.

"Come on now!" he pressed in a tone that could have been almost pleasant under other circumstances. "Do not complicate things! It won't hurt much," he considered this thought for a moment then quickly added with a charming smile. "I can give you painkillers if you want!"

"I don't want! I don't need! I have all my limbs!" yelled Momotaro desperately.

"Fingers?"

"Those too! Everything!"

"Oh," said Mayuri disappointedly. "Pity. But we can remedy this problem easily."

Momotaro paled as he saw Mayuri grabbing the hilt of his sword with an eager grin.

"He-hey! What are you doing?" Momotaro croaked as he backed hurriedly away until he got the table between them.

"I intend to heal you afterwards," assured him Mayuri. "What's more, I won't even ask money for it if I succeed! That's a really generous offer from me!"

"You mean healing for free my arm or leg that you cut off?"

"Precisely. Oh, don't worry! I will make as clean a cut as I can." He loosened his zanpakuto in its scabbard and - to Momotaro's horror - he started to draw it. "I promise!"

"Are you crazy?" screamed Momotaro nearly hysterically. "You must be joking!"

As the words died away, it felt like the whole world stopped in a shock of heavy silence. Momotaro looked up in despair. Mayuri stood in front of him motionlessly, his hand frozen in the air with the half-drawn sword in it, and he surveyed Momotaro with a deadpan glare.

"Actually..." he said slowly after a small pause of dramatic effect while his face grew a wide, mischievous grin."I am."

He sheathed his sword with a steady move and with a low chuckle he turned back to the table, leaving a very confused Momotaro behind.

It took a few moments for Momotaro to calm down enough to find his voice again.

"How could you..." he muttered in bewilderment.

Mayuri only smirked at him pleasantly.

"Oh my! Loosen up a bit! Even I can joke sometimes!" Then after a bit of consideration he added, "You couldn't seriously believe I would have you die on me while I live here! That would be very foolish. Everyone would immediately accuse me."

Momotaro shrugged. This knowledge didn't exactly put his mind at peace, but he had to admit this was still better than what the rest of Seireitei could say about themselves.

Still, Mayuri joking and smiling was a rare sight indeed.

"You seem to be in a good mood," Momotaro said at last, tentatively.

"Do I? That is possible," admitted Mayuri. He almost sounded amicable. "Today I will prove that I am right and U.K. is merely a bungling dunce, so I believe I definitely have a reason to be in a good mood."

Momotaro nodded. _Bungling dunce, eh?_

Mayuri had called U.K. many things before, but if anything, he had always admitted that the other shinigami was good at what he did; however, in the past week he had became suspiciously silent whenever the topic emerged. Something must have happened between the two of them at the Library, Momotaro was sure, and he would have given a lot to know what.

Mayuri picked up the brown box from the table, opened it and shook a little gray mouse out of it into his palm and with a wide, elegant move he pushed the mouse into Momotaro's hand.

"Let me introduce to you our experiment material for today."

The mouse looked around, a bit stunned from the sudden light. Its small pink nose quivered about in the air, sniffing. Momotaro inspected it.

"Didn't you say that..."

"I know what I said," interposed Mayuri sternly. "We will manage with a mouse this time. While it is certainly not as good as a living human would be, its disappearance will draw less attention." He produced a roll of thick, white thread from one of the drawers and tied a piece of it tightly around one tiny leg. Then he turned around and after a brief moment of thinking picked up the hugest knife he could find on the counter.

Momotaro eyed it with suspicion.

"What do you want with that?"

Mayuri froze and his eyebrows arched in surprise as he glanced from Momotaro to the knife and back again.

"Is that a trick question?" he inquired and snatched the mouse from the other shinigami's hand, pressed it to the kitchen table, and with a single, confident move chopped its leg off.

Momotaro just stared at the growing pool of blood with eyes wide from shock after the knife had struck down with a single, dull thud; then the world turned mercifully dark when he fainted.

He awoke to someone shaking him. When he opened his eyes, Mayuri was standing above him with a bloody knife in his hand.

"Get up! Get a grip of yourself! You will miss the best part!"

Momotaro felt he wouldn't mind missing the "best part" at all, but a morbid little voice in his head didn't let him black out again; so after a bit of trying he gave up and looked helplessly at the table.

Mayuri picked up the filled needle and injected its content into the mouse. The little rodent that had been squealing desperately up until then, suddenly became silent with a confused glare on its furry face. A tremble ran over it, up to its missing leg, its body writhed and suddenly, with a sound of bone cracking so quietly it was hardly noticeable, its wound closed and a little bump formed in its place. The bump grew and twisted until it became a leg with an uncharacteristically loud _popping_ sound.

The mouse's eyes widened perplexedly as it raised its leg and carefully shook it as if to check it was real indeed.

Momotaro blinked in fascination, all his previous suffering forgotten at once.

"Incredible... " he whispered as he leaned over the table to examine the animal. "It works! You were right!"

Mayuri straightened up again, his face glowing with self-satisfaction.

"Of course I was. I don't see how could this be a question. What you saw here today is the victory of prope..."

_Pop!_

Mayuri's expression froze.

_Pop! Pop!_

He turned slowly around.

_Pop-pop-pop!_

"How odd," he said at last, evenly.

_Pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop! Pop!_

Odd probably wasn't the way Momotaro would have described the picture in front of them; he felt maybe an unarticulated, blood-curdling, marrow-freezing scream would grasp the idea better, but that's a bit difficult to insert into a proper sentence. Or rather, Momotaro hoped this was the situation, because he felt the thought that Mayuri just didn't want to scream seeing what _he_ did was more than what he could handle right now. The thing on the table looked like something that would probably be the result of cross-breeding a centipede with a mouse and one of those little, wobbly rubber balls with countless tiny suction-cups around them. It already had about a dozen legs and it was growing new ones in every other second with a loud volley of _pops_. It sounded exactly like popcorn when its getting ready.

The mouse glanced quizzically from one leg to another (and another and another...) and rolled its eyes. Then it rolled its head too, as if it found the skin around its neck too tight, and with a pop much- _much_ louder than the ones before, it grew another head.

And then it blew up.

Momotaro didn't even budge.

He just stood there, still leaning over the table with mouse parts dripping all over him. He didn't dare to rise or to turn around, he didn't even dare to blink for a moment because he was sure that as soon as he moved he would realize what he saw was real, and he would faint again immediately.

He heard the sharp sound of indrawn breath; and as he slowly - very slowly - turned around, he saw Mayuri crawling out from behind the kitchen counter where he managed to hide just in time.

"This was... educational," Mayuri stated in a colorless voice as he was dusting his hakama.

Still in daze, Momotaro felt his head nodding in agreement and heard someone else, using his voice, asking from very far away:

"So, does this prove now that U.K. is a bungling dunce?"

Mayuri froze and shot an icy stare at Momotaro for a long moment but instead of answering he only rolled his eyes and straightened proudly.

"This place is a mess," he scowled in disgust. "Clean it up!" and with that, he stormed out through the door.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Meanwhile, somewhere else in Seireitei, in a dark and lonely office, Morihashi stamped a seal on a paper, then picked it up to clear the remaining drops of seal paste from it with a soft cloth. When he finished, gently, with an almost religious like care, he placed it back into its box. It wasn't an ordinary stamp. It was an inkan, an official seal carved from a single piece of pale green jade. There were only two kanjis on it, in a square frame, which gave out a name in the red paint on the paper: Urahara.

The shinigami closed the box, opened a drawer of the desk he sat at, took it out completely and placed it on the floor. Then he reached into the empty space in the table that it left until he felt his fingers touching a small dent in the wood. He hooked his finger in it and pulled it.

With a soft click a panel opened at the side of the furniture, with a tiny secret drawer behind it.

Morihashi carefully placed the box in it, closed the panel and started to arrange everything back to their place in the office.

It would be wrong to say that Morihashi smiled. That was an action he felt wouldn't go well with his position, but the corners of his mouth had certainly twitched upwards in a way that almost looked like a smile. He neatly folded the paper and discreetly hid it in his kimono. Another permit was ready for use, but in the case of this one, Urahara probably wouldn't be too happy to know what authorization he supposedly had just signed...

In spite of his appearance, Morihashi Junnosuke was not a young man. He was the 3rd seat of the 12th division not only under Urahara, but also under the previous captain, Hikifune, and probably even under the captain before her. In truth nobody in Soul Society could remember a time when Morihashi was not the 3rd seat of the 12th division. He had always been lurking around, in the offices or in the dark corridors with his notebooks, pale, gaunt face and polite, calm voice and absolutely nobody could recall a day he had ever spent away from work. He lived in the division compound and in peoples' minds he was part of it just like the walls – nobody seemed to notice him when he was there, but nobody could imagine what would happen to the place if he was gone either.

Captains appeared and disappeared over the years, but Morihashi had always remained. Not because he was popular (he wasn't the least bit creative or even powerful), but he had an ability that made him needed by everyone: he was one of the natural bureaucrats with a brain so strictly systematized clockwork could get jealous of it, the kind who knew everything that could be known about the laws and rules. He was probably the only one in Soul Society who always knew the answer to the ancient questions of humanity like: _"Which document do I need to fill out now to get my money?"_ or _"Where the Hell was this written in the contract? I have never seen anything like that in it!"_ and, of course _"Where is my coffee?"_

He felt that it was really his division - captains only lead it - and useless trash had no place in it. He couldn't do anything against Hiyori, but he would try his best to prevent another mistake, even if he had to risk his captain's trust. Urahara had to understand him, after all he only wanted the best for their squad - and for that now he just had to stomp on a few 'cockroaches'.  
 ****

 **-oOo-**

  
Momotaro sat back on his heels and wiped his forehead with the hem of his kimono. He was tired. He had spent the whole morning cleaning up the mess Mayuri caused with the mouse. He washed the floor at least ten times and he couldn't even count how many times he had scrubbed the dining table until he was sure there was no more blood on it, though he could still smell the distinctive metallic scent.

This was something that happened more often nowadays than he would have liked – in fact he couldn't remember doing anything else but cleaning since his new roommate had moved in and it wasn't only because of the homemade experiments.

What Mayuri said before was true, he didn't have many things – or at least not many kinds, but his belongings could be divided roughly into three groups: books, notes and what Momotaro (for lack of better words) liked to call "suspicious things". Sometimes they were organic, usually brown and always gruesome. Mayuri said that they had their uses, but Momotaro couldn't imagine what. They didn't seem to be good for anything, but giving the room a peculiar air that made everyone who stayed there for more than five minutes feel the need to run into the nearest bathhouse and scrub their skins. Even from the inside.

Momotaro tried to counter this and bring some homey feeling back to the place. He smuggled small objects into the room and onto the shelves, like an ikebana arrangement (a gift from a nurse of the 4th), tatami with colorful lining, dry flowers and an old warrior doll he had got on Boy's Day many years ago, but it was all futile. Most things disappeared by the next morning, only to turn up in the trash outside. The lone exception was the doll, although its head was sitting between its shoulders at a rather strange angle, and when he tried to set it straight, it fell off. In the end Momotaro felt the only way he could fight back was by cleaning, which actually made no difference at all, but it made him feel better.

Momotaro felt it was curious, how he couldn't imagine Mayuri cleaning up his own mess, but he suspected that this could be the key to another mystery that had been bothering him for a while: why would someone like Mayuri, who made such a play of his independence, insist on moving into his apartment so much? In a manner, Momotaro's home did offer more freedom than the barracks, yet in a funny way it also allowed less. In the barracks nobody cared about what the others did, while here, in this little house, Momotaro and Mayuri became part of each other's life to a point where it almost made any kind of privacy impossible. It just didn't seem to make sense.

But in the past few days, Momotaro slowly started to realize that no matter how much Mayuri hated people, he seemed to always need someone around. Not to share his day with him, but to be able to hit him, kick him or to be rude to him, and to assure him and the rest of the world how little that person is needed by him – after all, there is not much point in being independent if there is nobody you could be independent from. Mayuri had to drag someone along to demonstrate to everyone, probably even to himself, how little he needs anyone, because otherwise he would have to face the fact that nobody really cares.

Momotaro felt that from a certain point of view Mayuri's life must have been a lonely one. After all, no matter how self-centered and self-reliant you are, it must be somewhat depressing to know that the only reason people would ever go to your funeral is to make sure you won't get out of your coffin.

With a sigh Momotaro shooed this thought away and glanced around the room for one last time to check if anything needed any more scrubbing when something caught his eyes: a dark shadow was looming in the corner. He couldn't make out its contours well, but he didn't feel like taking chances with Mayuri's trinkets around, so he quickly picked up the biggest knife he could find on the counter behind him. If that shadow tried to move, he would make fishcake out of it! - he thought.

The shade didn't move and when Momotaro got closer he realized with relief that it was only a battered notebook stuck between one of the old tansu and the wall. He recognized immediately that it belonged to Mayuri, but his curiosity got the better of him. This was one of the little books Mayuri always carried on himself and though Momotaro felt guilty about it, he couldn't help but wonder what kind of little secrets its pages held. Mayuri was always so protective of his notes it couldn't be that he only wrote his calculations in it reasoned Momotaro, so he fished it out and flipped through the pages.

To his disappointment, he found nothing but boring stipulations on hundreds of pages, all written in Mayuri's erratic and square handwriting. Here and there little drawings broke the monotony of the text, but nothing interesting - at least Momotaro thought so until he reached the last used page. At what he found there, he felt the blood draining from his face.

It was only a sketch, nothing more then a few bold, black lines but nevertheless they made out a face so perfectly, it couldn't be mistaken. It was not the details, but the picture as a whole, even half finished as it was, captured the person's very being so flawlessly, Momotaro could feel the hair stand on his neck. Dark eyes gazed into his own from out of that loosely drawn shape with the same probing intelligence and intensity as in real life. It was an almost exact portrait of Urahara.

Still, this picture wasn't one ever meant for prying eyes - or at least the huge, thick X it was crossed out with suggested this. And suddenly a dreadful question occurred to Momotaro: Why exactly did Mayuri have a picture of Captain Urahara in his notebook? - and his brain almost immediately came up with the worst possible answer...

He bit his lip as he thought it over again and again and he felt his knees starting to shake.

This was bad. Very, very bad! He had to make sure! He had to make sure that... that he was only... only imagining things! Urahara Kisuke and U.K. couldn't possibly be the same man, could they?

He quickly jumped to his feet, still holding the notebook tightly in his hands and tried to think over what he should do. First he had to talk to Mayuri and then... and then...

And then he heard the window behind him breaking with a loud crash. Momotaro froze for a second before turning around, slowly.

Right across from the window, on the freshly cleaned wall of his freshly cleaned room, was a huge, ghastly message written with something that looked very much like blood, dripping like the dying message of a suffering wraith:

_"If you want to know the answer to your questions, come tonight in the hour of the dog, to the Taboku Kaiseki in the second district of Rukongai. Come alone! U.K."_

For a long moment Momotaro could only stare at the text in incomprehension, his mind battling between two sides: the rational part of him wondered what was the suitable reaction in a situation like this (screaming just seemed too feminine, while ignoring it and continuing with what he was doing before felt impossible), while his less rational part was just fed up with everything and simply wanted to turn his brain off.

"Oh bugger!" he groaned bitterly.

This wasn't fair!  


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